An international collaboration of physicists has presented its first results in its search for hypothetical particles that could help to explain the vast disparity between the strength of gravity and the three fundamental forces described by the Standard Model. Following three years of data collection at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)’s FASER experiment, the FASER Collaboration found no evidence for these heavy, slow-moving “quirks.”

All the same, their analysis offers important guidance in the ongoing search for the particles and could inspire similar searches at other large-scale particle colliders.

The collaboration’s analysis has been published in Physical Review Letters.