particle physics – Quanta Magazine https://www.quantamagazine.org Illuminating science Mon, 16 Sep 2024 14:10:47 -0400 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2 The First Nuclear Clock Will Test if Fundamental Constants Change https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-first-nuclear-clock-will-test-if-fundamental-constants-change-20240904/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-first-nuclear-clock-will-test-if-fundamental-constants-change-20240904/#respond Wed, 04 Sep 2024 15:02:43 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=140311 The post The First Nuclear Clock Will Test if Fundamental Constants Change first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> At 11:30 one night in May 2024, a graduate student, Chuankun Zhang, saw a signal that physicists have sought for 50 years. As a peak rose from the static on his monitor at the research institute JILA in Boulder, Colorado, Zhang dropped a screenshot in a group chat with his three lab mates. One by one they hopped out of bed and trickled in. After several sanity checks to make sure that what they...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-first-nuclear-clock-will-test-if-fundamental-constants-change-20240904/feed/ 0 Vacuum of Space to Decay Sooner Than Expected (but Still Not Soon) https://www.quantamagazine.org/vacuum-of-space-to-decay-sooner-than-expected-but-still-not-soon-20240722/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/vacuum-of-space-to-decay-sooner-than-expected-but-still-not-soon-20240722/#respond Mon, 22 Jul 2024 13:45:36 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=139255 The post Vacuum of Space to Decay Sooner Than Expected (but Still Not Soon) first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Vacuum decay, a process that could end the universe as we know it, may happen 10,000 times sooner than expected. Fortunately, it still won’t happen for a very, very long time. When physicists speak of “the vacuum,” the term sounds as though it refers to empty space, and in a sense it does. More specifically, it refers to a set of defaults, like settings on a control board. When the quantum fields...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/vacuum-of-space-to-decay-sooner-than-expected-but-still-not-soon-20240722/feed/ 0 What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly? https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-could-explain-the-gallium-anomaly-20240712/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-could-explain-the-gallium-anomaly-20240712/#respond Fri, 12 Jul 2024 13:30:54 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=139070 The post What Could Explain the Gallium Anomaly? first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> Deep in the Caucasus Mountains, on the border between Russia and Georgia, an unusual experiment is taking place. In an underground lab shielded by a mountain of rock, highly radioactive material sits inside a vat of liquid gallium, blasting out particles called neutrinos that break the gallium down into atoms of germanium. The goal is to resolve a little-known mystery of physics: the gallium...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/what-could-explain-the-gallium-anomaly-20240712/feed/ 0 The S-Matrix Is the Oracle Physicists Turn To in Times of Crisis https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-s-matrix-is-the-oracle-physicists-turn-to-in-times-of-crisis-20240523/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-s-matrix-is-the-oracle-physicists-turn-to-in-times-of-crisis-20240523/#respond Thu, 23 May 2024 14:20:31 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=138116 The post The S-Matrix Is the Oracle Physicists Turn To in Times of Crisis first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> In 1943, the German physicist Werner Heisenberg distracted himself from World War II by pondering a crisis in quantum theory. Predictions about how particles should behave were occasionally giving nonsensical, infinite results. These infinities led Heisenberg to distrust the way quantum physics was depicting reality, and to expect that a revolutionary new theory would eventually overthrow particle...

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]]> https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-s-matrix-is-the-oracle-physicists-turn-to-in-times-of-crisis-20240523/feed/ 0 Dogged Dark Matter Hunters Find New Hiding Places to Check https://www.quantamagazine.org/dogged-dark-matter-hunters-find-new-hiding-places-to-check-20240507/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/dogged-dark-matter-hunters-find-new-hiding-places-to-check-20240507/#respond Tue, 07 May 2024 14:37:01 +0000 https://www.quantamagazine.org/?p=137753 The post Dogged Dark Matter Hunters Find New Hiding Places to Check first appeared on Quanta Magazine

]]> The end is brutal for electrons hurtling at 99.9999999% of the speed of light through SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s two-mile-long beam pipe: a final slam into End Station A. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, such collisions broke apart protons and neutrons to reveal the elementary particles that make them up. The discovery won the experiment’s leader a Nobel Prize. “End Station A is this...

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