Particle physics is a research area focused on the fundamental constituents of matter and radiation and the interactions governing them, typically described by quantum field theories such as the Standard Model. It investigates quarks, leptons, gauge bosons, and the Higgs boson, and their dynamics under the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces, often at high energies where new degrees of freedom become accessible. The field relies on large-scale experiments (e.g., collider-based and fixed-target facilities), precision measurements, and advanced detectors, while also exploring physics beyond the Standard Model, including neutrino properties, dark matter candidates, and potential new symmetries or interaction sectors.
There is a limit to how big we can build particle colliders on Earth, whether that is because of limited space or limited economics. Since size is equivalent to energy output for particle colliders, that also means there's ...
General Physics
Nov 3, 2025
0
7
On July 4, 2012, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland announced with great fanfare that they had successfully detected the Higgs boson, the manifestation of the mechanism that gives some elementary ...
General Physics
Nov 3, 2025
0
42
How did the universe come into being? There are a multitude of theories on this subject. In a Physical Review Letters paper, three scientists formulate a new model: according to this, inflation, the first, very rapid expansion ...
General Physics
Oct 24, 2025
1
92
Very early on in our universe, when it was a seething hot cauldron of energy, particles made of matter and antimatter bubbled into existence in equal proportions. For example, negatively charged electrons were created in ...
General Physics
Oct 22, 2025
0
104
Neutrinos are very common fundamental particles included in the Standard Model of particle physics. Measuring their properties allows for creating more accurate models of the birth of the universe, the life of stars and the ...
General Physics
Oct 7, 2025
0
4
A clever mathematical tool known as virtual particles unlocks the strange and mysterious inner workings of subatomic particles. What happens to these particles within atoms would stay unexplained without this tool. The calculations ...
General Physics
Oct 6, 2025
5
57
Determining the nature of dark matter, the invisible substance that makes up most of the mass in our universe, is one of the greatest puzzles in physics. New results from the world's most sensitive dark matter detector, LUX-ZEPLIN ...
General Physics
Sep 29, 2025
1
42
A lot of the science from our accelerators is published long after collisions end, so storing experimental data for future physicists is crucial.
General Physics
Sep 25, 2025
0
20
Although the building blocks of life such as hydrogen and oxygen appear stable to us, many theories of physics predict that they are actually just tremendously long-lived, with the particles found in their nuclei slowly, ...
General Physics
Sep 22, 2025
3
34
Neutrinos are one of the most enigmatic particles in the standard model. The main reason is that they're so hard to detect. Despite the fact that 400 trillion of them created in the sun are passing through a person's body ...
General Physics
Sep 15, 2025
0
15
