{"id":235896,"date":"2026-04-25T02:26:23","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T07:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/new-approach-to-detect-ultra-rare-part-per-sextillion-isotopes-could-also-sharpen-dark-matter-searches"},"modified":"2026-04-25T02:26:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T07:26:23","slug":"new-approach-to-detect-ultra-rare-part-per-sextillion-isotopes-could-also-sharpen-dark-matter-searches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/new-approach-to-detect-ultra-rare-part-per-sextillion-isotopes-could-also-sharpen-dark-matter-searches","title":{"rendered":"New approach to detect ultra-rare part-per-sextillion isotopes could also sharpen dark matter searches"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-approach-to-detect-ultra-rare-part-per-sextillion-isotopes-could-also-sharpen-dark-matter-searches2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The detection and study of isotopes, atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons, could expand the scope of physics research and enable new scientific discoveries. So far, rare isotopes have been primarily detected using a technique known as accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), which accelerates atoms, to then measure their mass and charge.<\/p>\n<p>Despite its widespread use, AMS is not always precise at the <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2023-11-tracking-near-earth-cosmic-explosions.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">ultra-rare<\/a> level, as it is susceptible to what is known as background interference. This essentially means that similar atoms or neighboring isotopes can produce misleading signals that reduce the accuracy and precision of measurements.<\/p>\n<p>Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China and the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently developed a new technique for detecting and counting individual atoms called Atom Trap Trace Analysis (ATTA).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The detection and study of isotopes, atoms of the same element that have different numbers of neutrons, could expand the scope of physics research and enable new scientific discoveries. So far, rare isotopes have been primarily detected using a technique known as accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), which accelerates atoms, to then measure their mass and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosmology","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}