{"id":240663,"date":"2026-07-11T07:26:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T12:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/a-simple-search-for-tiny-charges"},"modified":"2026-07-11T07:26:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T12:26:05","slug":"a-simple-search-for-tiny-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/a-simple-search-for-tiny-charges","title":{"rendered":"A Simple Search for Tiny Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/a-simple-search-for-tiny-charges2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Decades-old experiments have now been enlisted to set new bounds on the properties of a hypothetical particle that bears a tiny fraction of the electron\u2019s charge.<\/p>\n<p>One candidate for the mysterious dark matter believed to pervade the Universe is a hypothetical form of matter called millicharged particles (mCPs), which carry a tiny fraction of the charge on an electron. A research team has now proposed that such particles, if they exist, might be detected by letting them accumulate in simple laboratory-scale devices already used for creating and measuring electric charge [<a href=\"https:\/\/physics.aps.org\/articles\/v19\/102#c1\">1<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/physics.aps.org\/articles\/v19\/102#c2\">2<\/a>]. The team has shown that previous measurements made with such devices can be used to set new limits on the properties of mCPs.<\/p>\n<p>The standard model of particle physics accommodates the 17 particles that make up regular, visible matter, but researchers are seeking to extend it to include gravity or dark matter or both. Dark matter seems to be demanded by astronomical observations and\u2014aside from its gravitational interactions\u2014should interact minimally, if at all, with light and with other matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Decades-old experiments have now been enlisted to set new bounds on the properties of a hypothetical particle that bears a tiny fraction of the electron\u2019s charge. One candidate for the mysterious dark matter believed to pervade the Universe is a hypothetical form of matter called millicharged particles (mCPs), which carry a tiny fraction of the [\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-240663","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\/240663","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=240663"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240663\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240663"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240663"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240663"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}