For decades, physicists have suspected an interloper. A reclusive, hypothetical subatomic particle might be creeping into studies of neutrinos, nearly massless particles with no electric charge. A new study casts…
Category: Particle Physics
How particle detectors capture matter’s hidden, beautiful reality
At every moment, subatomic particles stream in unfathomable numbers through your body. Each second, about 100 billion neutrinos from the sun pass through your thumbnail, and you’re bathed in a…
Physicists dream big with an idea for a particle collider on the moon
If you could peer into a particle physicist’s daydream, you might spy a vision of a giant lunar particle accelerator. Now, researchers have calculated what such an enormous, hypothetical machine…
In a first, neutrinos were caught interacting at the Large Hadron Collider
The Large Hadron Collider’s claim to fame is its ability to unveil elusive subatomic particles. But there’s one class of particle that it had never directly detected, even though it…
The thickness of lead’s neutron ‘skin’ has been precisely measured
Some atomic nuclei are thin-skinned — they’re surrounded by a slim shell of neutrons. Physicists now know how thick that neutron skin is for one particular type of nucleus. The…
The already tiny neutrino’s maximum possible mass has shrunk even further
To understand neutrinos, it pays to be small-minded. The subatomic particles are so lightweight, they’re almost massless. They’re a tiny fraction of the mass of the next lightest particle, the…
How matter’s hidden complexity unleashed the power of nuclear physics
Matter is a lush tapestry, woven from a complex assortment of threads. Diverse subatomic particles weave together to fabricate the universe we inhabit. But a century ago, people believed that…
Newly made laser-cooled antimatter could test foundations of modern physics
For the first time, physicists have used lasers to deep-freeze antimatter. In a new experiment, an ultraviolet laser quelled the thermal jitters of antihydrogen atoms, chilling the antiatoms to just…
Muon magnetism could hint at a breakdown of physics’ standard model
A mysterious magnetic property of subatomic particles called muons hints that new fundamental particles may be lurking undiscovered. In a painstakingly precise experiment, muons’ gyrations within a magnetic field seem…
Protons’ antimatter is even more lopsided than we thought
The proton’s antimatter is out of whack. An imbalance between two types of antiparticles that seethe within the proton is even wonkier than previously thought, a new measurement indicates. Protons…
