Physics
World's Most Sensitive Lab Search for Axions Finds Nothing and Narrows the Hunt
Germany's ALPS II experiment shot a laser through a wall of magnets to look for the hypothetical particle, and its first results set robust new limits.
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Particle physics
98 stories from Planck Standard. Latest: November 12, 2026.
PhysicsLHCb Finds First Evidence of One of Nature's Rarest Decays After a 42-Year Hunt
The upgraded experiment at CERN saw a beauty particle decay into two muons at 3.2 sigma, matching the Standard Model but opening a narrow window onto the 'Zeptoverse.'
PhysicsCERN Finds First Hint of an Ultra-Rare Particle Decay That Could Expose New Physics
The LHCb experiment sees a beauty particle turn into two muons at 3.2 sigma, matching the Standard Model and ending a 40-year hunt's first chapter.
PhysicsCERN Experiments Find Rare Particle Decays Drifting Slightly From Standard Model Predictions
CMS and LHCb both see small, consistent differences in a decay that happens about once in 10 million beauty-particle decays, though neither result is conclusive.
PhysicsPhysicists Make the First Images With Laser-Generated Muons, Seeing Through Concrete and Lead
A Romanian team used a high-power laser to build an artificial muon beam and captured the shadow of a pile of lead bricks behind a 2-meter concrete wall.
PhysicsQuantum Simulator Made of 13 Trapped Ions Watches Matter Pop Into Existence From Energy
Duke-led physicists recreated 'string breaking,' the process that turns stretched-out energy into particle pairs. Google and QuEra teams reached similar results on different hardware.
PhysicsSeven-Year Dark Matter Hunt Tests Whether the Universe's Missing Mass Has 'Dark Nuclei'
The DarkSide-50 detector under Italy's Gran Sasso mountain found no ultraheavy composite dark matter, but ruled out a wide range of its possible properties.
PhysicsThree Odd Crystals Could Make Dark Matter Detectors 100 to 1,000 Times More Sensitive, and Two of Them Would Show the Signal Rising and Falling as Earth Turns
Titanium diselenide, strontium ruthenate and hole-doped diamond host low-energy electron waves called plasmons that amplify the faint kick a light dark matter particle would deliver, physicists report in Physical Review Letters. All three can be made today.
PhysicsTen Billion Collisions and a Trick From 1990: China's BESIII Just Retested the Standard Model's Bookkeeping
Physicists used entangled lambda hyperons to measure how often a strange quark turns into an up quark. The numbers still add up to one — and still disagree slightly with the older kaon measurements.
PhysicsThey Went Hunting One Exotic Particle at Jefferson Lab and Came Back With Two Nobody Ordered
The GlueX experiment aimed a photon beam at protons to confirm a 20-year-old particle candidate. It missed that target and instead found evidence for two previously unseen structures, one of them at the five-sigma threshold physicists treat as a discovery.
PhysicsA Dark Matter Detector Under an Italian Mountain Just Caught the Sun’s Faintest Neutrinos at 17,000 Electron Volts
XENONnT pushed the direct detection threshold for neutrinos lower than anyone has managed before. The signal comes from the proton-proton fusion that powers the Sun.
PhysicsA Xenon Tank a Mile Under South Dakota Logged One Event It Cannot Explain
LUX-ZEPLIN found a single high-energy interaction sitting exactly where dark matter should appear and where almost no background should. At 2.6 sigma, it is nowhere close to a discovery.
PhysicsA Mile Under Ontario, 24 Crystals Colder Than Deep Space Just Started Hunting Light Dark Matter
SuperCDMS SNOLAB has begun taking its first science data. Its shielding includes lead salvaged from ancient ballast on the floor of the Mediterranean.
PhysicsAll Four LHC Experiments Now Say the Collider's Smallest Nuclei Are Making the Universe's Hottest Matter
Physicists thought you needed lead — 200 times heavier than a proton — to melt matter into quark-gluon plasma. Oxygen and neon just did it, and ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb all saw it independently.
PhysicsElectrons Always Outrun the Wave That Pushes Them
A specially shaped mirror sweeps a laser's focal point down the beam axis at the vacuum speed of light, defeating the 'dephasing' ceiling that has capped plasma accelerators. Electrons hit 396 MeV where the limit predicted 185.
PhysicsA Tank of Liquid Xenon Under an Italian Mountain Just Pushed Dark Matter Into the 'Neutrino Fog'
XENONnT found nothing — and that nothing is the tightest limit yet on axion-like particles and dark photons. It is the first detector to reach the boundary where the sun's own neutrinos start masquerading as a signal.
PhysicsAfter Nearly 50 Years of Searching, Physicists Say They've Cornered the Glueball — a Particle Made of Pure Force
The BESIII collaboration in Beijing reported that a particle called X(2370) is dominated by a pseudoscalar glueball, a knot of gluons with no quarks in it at all, closing in on one of quantum chromodynamics' oldest unconfirmed predictions.
PhysicsPhysicists Turned the Entire Planet Into a Dark Matter Detector and Tightened the Limits 100-Fold
A Japanese team used the cavity between Earth's surface and its ionosphere as a natural resonator, then searched a decade of magnetic-field recordings from a Scottish observatory for the signature of axions.
PhysicsA Detector in France Counted Ghost Particles Streaming Out of Nuclear Fuel That Had Already Been Switched Off
The Double Chooz experiment logged about 100 antineutrinos during 17 days when both reactors next door were shut down — the first measurement of its kind, and a possible new tool for catching cheating on nuclear treaties.
PhysicsScientists Build a Camera That Sees Invisible Particles in 3D — With as Few as Five Photons
A Swiss team's detector, called PLATON, could replace millions of tiny sensor components with a single block of light-producing material, using a light-field camera and AI to reconstruct particle tracks.
PhysicsRice Physicists Design a Tunable 'SQWARE' Chip to Hunt Axion Dark Matter With a Magnetic Field
A proposed semiconductor detector would convert theoretical dark-matter particles into light and tune itself simply by changing a magnetic field, potentially opening mass ranges that have long eluded searches.
PhysicsChina's JUNO Detector Delivers First Results, Sharpening the Neutrino Mass Mystery
Featured on the cover of Nature, the giant underground observatory measured key neutrino properties with record precision after just two months of data — and put itself on track to crack one of physics' biggest puzzles.
PhysicsGiant Underground Neutrino Detector Delivers Breakthrough Results in Just 59 Days
China's JUNO observatory achieves record precision in neutrino measurements, bringing scientists closer to solving the neutrino mass hierarchy puzzle.
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Giant Underground Observatory Brings Scientists Closer to Cracking Neutrino Puzzle
China's JUNO detector achieves breakthrough measurements using just 59 days of data, boosting confidence for solving neutrino mass mystery.
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Chinese Underground Observatory Achieves Breakthrough Neutrino Measurements With Unprecedented Precision
JUNO detector reduces measurement uncertainties by factor of 1.6 using just 59 days of data, bringing scientists closer to solving neutrino mass hierarchy mystery.
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Chinese Underground Observatory Delivers Precision Neutrino Measurements in Record Time
The JUNO experiment achieved breakthrough results using just 59 days of data, improving measurement accuracy by 60% compared to decades of previous research combined.
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Chinese Underground Observatory Achieves Breakthrough in Neutrino Physics Precision
JUNO detector delivers most precise measurements of neutrino oscillation parameters using just 59 days of data, advancing the quest to solve fundamental particle mysteries.
PhysicsScientists Solve Mystery of Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays With Ultraheavy Particle Theory
New research suggests the mysterious Amaterasu particle and similar cosmic rays may be atomic nuclei heavier than iron that retain energy across vast distances.
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Scientists Think They Solved the Mystery of the Amaterasu Particle
New research suggests the most extreme cosmic rays could be ultraheavy atomic nuclei from distant explosions, not protons as previously thought.
PhysicsAfter 87 Years, Physicists Capture the 'Ghost' Migdal Effect — a New Window on Dark Matter
A Chinese team reported in Nature the first direct observation of a 1939 prediction: an electron flung from a recoiling atom, a trick that could finally reveal lightweight dark matter.
PhysicsLarge Hadron Collider Hints at Physics Beyond the Standard Model
CERN researchers detect rare particle transformations that disagree with 50-year-old theory, potentially pointing to unknown forces or particles.
- Physics
Large Hadron Collider Detects Particle Behavior That Could Rewrite Physics
Scientists studying rare "penguin decays" found behavior that doesn't match theoretical predictions, suggesting unknown particles or forces may be at work.
- Physics
Large Hadron Collider Detects Particle Behavior That May Challenge Standard Model
Scientists studying rare 'penguin decays' found results that disagree with 50-year-old physics theory, suggesting unknown particles or forces may exist.
- Physics
Large Hadron Collider Detects Strange Particle Behavior That Could Rewrite Physics
Scientists studying rare 'penguin decays' find results that don't match theoretical predictions, suggesting unknown particles or forces may exist.
- Physics
Large Hadron Collider Detects Particle Behavior That Could Shatter Physics
Penguin decays show behavior inconsistent with Standard Model predictions, with only 1-in-16,000 chance results are random fluctuation.
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Large Hadron Collider Finds Strongest Hints Yet of Physics Beyond Standard Model
Scientists studying rare 'penguin decays' detect particle behavior that disagrees with 50-year-old theory, suggesting unknown particles or forces may exist.
- Physics
Large Hadron Collider Scientists Find Hints of Physics Beyond the Standard Model
Researchers studying rare 'penguin decays' at CERN detected particle behavior that doesn't match theoretical predictions, suggesting unknown forces may exist.
PhysicsScientists Discover Muon Mystery Was Just a Calculation Error After Decades
Supercomputer calculations reveal the apparent violation of physics was likely due to limitations in earlier theoretical work, confirming the Standard Model remains intact.
PhysicsString Theory Emerges Naturally From Simple Physics Rules
Physicists discover that starting with basic particle collision principles, the mathematics spontaneously produces string theory signatures without assuming strings exist.
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Scientists Discover Muon "Rule-Breaking" Anomaly Was Actually a Calculation Error
Decades-long mystery that hinted at new physics forces resolved after supercomputer calculations show Standard Model remains intact.
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String Theory Emerges Spontaneously From Simple Physics Rules in Breakthrough Study
Researchers using bootstrap approach discover string theory signatures without assuming strings existed from the start.
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Scientists Solve Decades-Old Muon Mystery That Threatened to Upend Physics
Supercomputer calculations reveal that the apparent "rule-breaking" particle behavior was likely a calculation error, keeping the Standard Model intact.
PhysicsScientists Crack 100-Year Mystery Behind Cosmic Ray Behavior
DAMPE space telescope reveals universal pattern governing mysterious high-energy particles from across the galaxy.
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Scientists Uncover Hidden Universal Rule Behind Cosmic Rays After 100-Year Mystery
DAMPE space telescope reveals that all cosmic ray particles follow the same fading pattern, potentially solving century-old puzzle about their origins.
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Scientists Finally Uncover Hidden Rule Behind Cosmic Rays After Century-Long Mystery
DAMPE space telescope reveals universal pattern in mysterious high-energy particles, offering new clues about their galactic origins and behavior.
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Scientists Uncover Universal Pattern in Cosmic Rays After Century-Long Mystery
Researchers using the DAMPE space telescope discovered that cosmic ray particles all fade away at the same point, revealing a hidden rule governing their behavior.
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After 100 Years, Scientists Finally Uncover Hidden Rule Behind Cosmic Rays
DAMPE space telescope reveals universal pattern governing mysterious ultra-powerful particles traveling across the galaxy.
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Scientists Crack 100-Year Mystery of Cosmic Rays with Universal Pattern Discovery
Researchers using the DAMPE space telescope uncovered a hidden rule governing ultra-powerful particles that travel across the galaxy, potentially solving one of physics' longest-standing puzzles.
PhysicsPhysicists Discover Quantum Particles That Break Traditional Reality Rules
Scientists identify 'anyons' in one-dimensional systems, exotic particles that exist between the familiar categories of bosons and fermions.
- Physics
Physicists Discover Quantum Particles That Defy Reality's Basic Rules
Researchers demonstrate existence of "anyons" in one-dimensional systems, opening new possibilities for tunable quantum particles beyond traditional bosons and fermions.
PhysicsUndergraduate Students Build 'Cosmic Radio' to Hunt for Dark Matter Particles
Hamburg university students construct functional axion detector with limited resources, establishing new experimental limits on dark matter properties.
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Students Build Revolutionary 'Cosmic Radio' to Hunt for Dark Matter Particles
Undergraduate researchers from Hamburg University constructed their own dark matter detector and used it to search for axions, establishing new experimental limits despite working with limited resources.
PhysicsGravitational Waves May Have Created Dark Matter in Early Universe
New research suggests ancient ripples in spacetime could have transformed into the invisible particles that shape galaxies today.
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Scientists Discover Gravitational Waves May Have Created Dark Matter in Early Universe
New research suggests ancient ripples in spacetime could have transformed into particles that became the invisible substance shaping galaxies today.
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Gravitational Waves May Have Created Dark Matter in Universe's First Moments
New research suggests ancient ripples in spacetime could have transformed into particles that became the invisible substance shaping galaxies today.
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Scientists Create Ancient Dark Matter Using Gravitational Wave Breakthrough
Researchers discover that spacetime ripples from the Big Bang may have transformed into particles that became the invisible substance shaping galaxies today.
PhysicsPhysicists Discover Exotic Particle That Could Explain Mass Origins
Breakthrough experiment reveals evidence of strange new matter state where fleeting particles get trapped inside atomic nuclei, potentially solving fundamental questions about how particles acquire mass.
PhysicsScientists Use AI to Uncover Revolutionary Physics in Dusty Plasma's Fourth State of Matter
Machine learning breakthrough reveals hidden particle interaction laws with 99% accuracy, overturning long-held scientific assumptions about non-reciprocal forces.
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AI Breakthrough Reveals Hidden Physics in Fourth State of Matter
Scientists have used machine learning to uncover entirely new laws of nature in dusty plasma, achieving over 99% accuracy in modeling complex particle interactions.
PhysicsFermilab's Muon g-2 Experiment Wins $3M Breakthrough Prize for Hinting at Physics Beyond Standard Model
A 60-year multigenerational collaboration measured the muon's magnetic moment at 127 parts per billion — 30,000 times more precise than the 1965 baseline — revealing a persistent deviation.
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