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Category: particle physics – Page 24

Levitated magnet opens new frontier in search for ultraheavy dark matter

Rice University researchers have used a magnetically levitated particle to search for ultraheavy dark matter, extending the hunt for some of the heaviest possible forms of the invisible matter thought to hold galaxies together. Led by Christopher Tunnell, associate professor of physics and astronomy, the researchers used a tiny floating magnet as a highly sensitive detector designed to register the faint push an ultraheavy dark matter particle could produce as it passed through.

Dark matter plays a fundamental role in the structure of the universe, influencing the formation and stability of galaxies such as the Milky Way. However, scientists have yet to determine its composition. Understanding what dark matter is made of could enhance knowledge of how galaxies formed and evolved.

Most dark matter experiments focus on particles with masses similar to those of atoms, but some theories propose that the particles might be significantly heavier, potentially reaching the mass of a living cell. This Rice-led research demonstrates how a floating magnet can broaden the search to include these heavier candidates. The findings were released at the 2026 International Conference on Particle Physics and Cosmology.

The universe is finetuned for technology, not just life » IAI TV

The universe seems to be fine-tuned for life. Were nature’s constants even slightly different, life wouldn’t exist. To explain this, scientists reach for bizarre ideas, like an infinite multiverse. But physicist and technologist Jeff Shainline thinks we’ve been missing a crucial clue. The universe isn’t just fine-tuned for life, but also for the creation of technology – humanity itself is just one step in this longer evolutionary process. He uses this observation to build a new case for an overlooked explanation of fine-tuning: Lee Smolin’s proposal that universes reproduce through black holes and, like organisms, evolve across cosmic generations towards fecundity. Life and technology, Shainline argues, are not the point of the universe, but parts of its reproductive strategy.

A deep puzzle has loomed over physics since the 1950s. The world we observe—from sub-atomic quarks to lightyear-spanning galaxies—has the properties it does because a short list of numbers takes certain values. These numbers are often referred to as constants of nature (I will refer to them as parameters), and they include quantities like the speed of light, the masses of fundamental particles, and the strengths of the fundamental forces. The puzzle arises because these numbers have very special values that allow life to exist. This is called fine-tuning. As an example, life depends on carbon, and carbon is made in stars. But the specific process by which carbon is made in stars is extraordinary, relying on a very peculiar coincidence of properties involving electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong nuclear force that causes alpha particles to fuse into carbon nuclei.

Earth’s Inner Core May Hide a Strange State of Matter

Experiments under extreme conditions suggest that iron hydride can enter a superionic state, allowing hydrogen to move through a solid iron lattice.

Far beneath Earth’s surface, the inner core is squeezed and heated to conditions so extreme that some of its ingredients may behave in an unexpected way. Experiments from researchers at Science Tokyo suggest that iron hydride can enter a superionic state, in which the iron structure stays solid while hydrogen moves through it. The results offer new clues about the composition and behavior of Earth’s deepest interior.

Earth’s inner core consists mostly of iron mixed with a small proportion of lighter elements. Under the immense pressures and temperatures found there, alloys containing elements such as hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon are predicted to become superionic. In this unusual state of matter, iron atoms remain close to fixed positions in the crystal lattice while lighter atoms move through that structure almost like a liquid.

Light reveals internal motion in electron crystals and can trigger their melting

Electrons, particles that carry a negative electric charge, typically move through materials. At low densities and temperatures, however, the electrical repulsion between them can overpower their tendency to move, prompting them to arrange themselves into ordered patterns known as Wigner crystals.

In contrast with ordinary crystals, which consist of atoms arranged in a repeating pattern, Wigner crystals are ordered arrangements of electrons in regular, crystal-like patterns inside a material. These electron crystals are valuable platforms for testing fundamental theories of particle interactions and studying quantum phase transitions. Reliable methods for controlling them could also inform the development of future electronic, optoelectronic, spintronic and quantum devices.

Researchers at the University of Maryland, ETH Zurich and other institutes recently examined a Wigner crystal in a single, atomically thin layer of tungsten diselenide (WSe2), which belongs to a family of materials called transition metal dichalcogenides.

Japan Is Launching a Probe to Collect the FirstEver Samples From a Martian Moon

Once on the surface, a robotic arm will drill cylindrical tubes into the surface to collect samples. The probe is also equipped with a device first developed by NASA that uses a stream of nitrogen gas to collect fine particles from the very top layer of dust. Whether or not Phobos originated from an impact with the planet, experts believe Martian sand can be obtained from the lunar surface. Over time, meteorite impacts have blasted materials off Mars, coating its moons. Scientists expect about 0.1 percent of the samples collected will be debris from Mars itself.

Costing about $345 million US, this mission marks Japan’s first Mars probe launch in 28 years. Beyond the scientific insights it’s expected to provide, from an engineering perspective, the mission aims to test new technologies that could aid future sampling and round-trip travel to Mars.

MMX is scheduled to launch from the Tanegashima Space Center on October 20, 2026.

Quantum-optical spin glass could improve how AI remembers and learns

A new study has demonstrated that it is possible to make a network of atoms and photons that could improve how artificial intelligence stores and recalls memories. This network, called a quantum-optical spin glass, works as an associative memory, a form of AI that enables the recall of full memories from partial information—much like how humans can recognize a person’s face in a blurred photograph.

The advance, published in Science, shows that this new type of spin glass has a greater capacity to hold and recall memories than a traditional AI network of the same size. The atom-and-photon network also exhibited short-term plasticity, a phenomenon that resembles how synaptic connections between neurons in the brain change when learning new information.

“We can now make neural networks at the atomic level, and they adjust themselves in a way that is somewhat similar to how we believe our brains learn,” said Benjamin Lev, the study’s senior author and the Stanford Fortitude Professor and professor of physics and applied physics in the School of Humanities and Sciences.

BESIII sets world’s most stringent direct limit on Lambda hyperon electric dipole moment

The BESIII Collaboration, led by the Institute of High Energy Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has achieved the world’s most precise measurement of the electric dipole moment (EDM) of the Lambda (Λ) hyperon using quantum-entangled Λ–anti-Λ pairs produced in J/ψ decays. The result improves the experimental sensitivity by about three orders of magnitude compared with the previous measurement, providing a new way to probe charge-parity (CP) violation in particles containing strange quarks.

The study is published in Science.

One of the most profound mysteries in modern physics is why the observable universe is dominated by matter rather than antimatter. Although the Standard Model has been remarkably successful in describing elementary particles and their interactions, its known sources of CP violation are insufficient to account for this cosmic imbalance. Searching for additional sources of CP violation is therefore an important path toward physics beyond the Standard Model.

Scientists Just Challenged a Century-Old Theory of How Crystals Form

3D atomic imaging of advanced materials provides new insights into transitions such as liquids freezing into solids.

For nearly a century, scientists have relied on classical nucleation theory to explain how phase transitions such as freezing and condensation get started. The theory describes how small, ordered regions called nuclei emerge within disordered matter, and a central equation behind that picture has been supported by thousands of experiments.

But when UCLA-led researchers examined crystal formation atom by atom in three dimensions, the nuclei did not look the way the classical model predicts.

Scientists Expose Unexpected Driver of the May 2024 Superstorm

Even though the solar wind was unusually dense during the May 2024 superstorm, ions from the solar wind contributed very little to the ring current, marking the first time both were observed simultaneously during a storm of this magnitude.

In May 2024, auroras spread into skies far beyond their usual range, appearing at unusually low latitudes around the world. Far above those displays, inside Earth’s magnetosphere, measurements were capturing something never before seen during a geomagnetic storm of this magnitude.

The storm began when a large sunspot unleashed a rapid sequence of powerful solar eruptions. Multiple clouds of magnetized plasma merged on their way through space before striking Earth’s magnetosphere, the region dominated by our planet’s magnetic field. The resulting disturbance was the strongest ever measured directly in Earth’s ring current region, a belt of charged particles surrounding the planet.