https://phys.org/physics-news/physics/ en-us The latest news on physics, materials, nanotech, science and technology. Researchers have uncovered a counterintuitive phenomenon in collision dynamics: high-speed particles bounce back from wet walls much more strongly than expected. Integrating experimental observations with advanced numerical simulations revealed that increasing the impact speed induces a morphological transition in the post-collision liquid film, shifting it from a bridge to a dome shape. Further, it clarified the relevance of cavitation to such a dramatic change and to the stronger bounce. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-high-particles-higher-collisions.html General Physics Tue, 28 Apr 2026 09:40:06 EDT news696586201 From wearable technology to industrial heat recovery, thermoelectric generators which convert waste heat into electricity have an enormous range of potential applications. So far, however, designing high-performing versions of these devices has remained a painstaking task. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ai-slashes-harvesting-devices.html General Physics Tue, 28 Apr 2026 08:10:02 EDT news696162360 Sticking with the same people might feel safe and comfortable. But a new Northwestern University study suggests it can actually trap new ideas and behaviors inside tight echo chambers. By contrast, the research, published in Communications Physics, shows that when interactions shift away from familiar contacts—and toward new ones—activity can spread more widely. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ideas-physics-based.html General Physics Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:30:01 EDT news696522781 A scientist from Tokyo Metropolitan University has proposed using safety monitoring at synchrotron facilities to study the properties of dark photons, hypothetical particles proposed to explain dark matter. Calculations show that the X-ray source at these sites and a Geiger-Muller counter behind safety shielding could be used to propose limits on how strongly dark photons interact with normal photons. The experiment would not involve a dedicated facility and could run alongside other experiments. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-synchrotron-safety-dark-photons.html General Physics Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:40:05 EDT news696506941 A detector buried deep in Antarctic ice has captured the first experimental evidence of a predicted but never-before-seen phenomenon: radio pulses generated when high-energy cosmic rays slam into the ice sheet and trigger particle cascades inside it. Through results published in Physical Review Letters, astronomers of the Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) Collaboration have validated a key technique, which they hope will eventually allow them to detect some of the rarest and most energetic particles in the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-deep-antarctic-ice-cosmic-strange.html General Physics Sun, 26 Apr 2026 10:00:01 EDT news696072009 For some time, researchers have assumed that solid materials could gain more useful properties by making their microscopic components more active. Now, a team led by Jack Binysh at the University of Amsterdam has found that this idea doesn't always hold. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-response-materials.html General Physics Sat, 25 Apr 2026 13:00:03 EDT news695900124 Some innovations in physics come from entirely new technologies, others from fresh theoretical insights. Others still take shape by bringing together existing tools in new ways, working out how to combine them to outperform other solutions. The branch of particle physics that studies weakly interacting particles—such as neutrinos and some types of dark-matter candidates—could use innovative detection approaches: technological challenges in this research area quickly become practical as well as economic, as increases in detector volume and spatial resolution improve the sensitivity to the processes producing the particles of interest. Similarly, demanding targets on instrument capability apply to the calorimeters used in collider experiments. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-neutrinos-caught-camera-prototype-elementary.html General Physics Fri, 24 Apr 2026 18:20:01 EDT news696257942 A study by University of Wollongong (UOW) physicist Dr. Enbang Li has demonstrated that gravity can subtly influence the behavior of light, a breakthrough that could underpin future technologies for monitoring groundwater, tracking glacier melt, locating mineral deposits and detecting underground changes linked to volcanic activity and carbon storage. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-gravity-subtle-effect-groundwater-volcano.html General Physics Fri, 24 Apr 2026 12:00:03 EDT news696246841 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. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-approach-ultra-rare-sextillion-isotopes.html General Physics Fri, 24 Apr 2026 10:40:07 EDT news696241546 When you throw a ball in the air, the equations of classical physics will tell you exactly what path the ball will take as it falls, and when and where it will land. But if you were to squeeze that same ball down to the size of an atom or smaller, it would behave in ways beyond anything that classical physics can predict. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-classical-physics-quantum-weirdness.html General Physics Wed, 22 Apr 2026 14:40:06 EDT news696077161 One of the biggest open questions in particle physics today is how the Higgs boson interacts with itself. This "self-coupling" could help explain the evolution of the early universe and the mechanism that gives mass to elementary particles. To try to shed light on this fundamental interaction, the ATLAS Collaboration has recently studied one of the "golden" decay channels of a pair of Higgs bosons, where one Higgs boson decays into two photons and the other into a pair of bottom quarks. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-atlas-limits-higgs-boson-interaction.html General Physics Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:20:01 EDT news696076082 A tiny discrepancy in particle physics has loomed for decades as an exciting possible crack in one of science's most successful theories, hinting at unknown forces or quantum objects. Now, an international team led by a Penn State physicist has published the most precise study yet to reveal the discrepancy was a fluke in calculation, not nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-particle-thought-physics-reveals.html General Physics Wed, 22 Apr 2026 11:00:06 EDT news696065647 Only about 5% of the universe is composed of normal matter that we can directly observe, while the remaining 95% is widely believed to consist of dark matter and dark energy. Paradoxically, however, the nature of these dark components remains unknown. Is this due to limitations in our observational capabilities, or does it reflect a more fundamental incompleteness in the classical laws of physics that have long underpinned our understanding of the universe? https://phys.org/news/2026-04-decoherence-gravity-dark-energy-quantum.html General Physics Wed, 22 Apr 2026 07:30:01 EDT news696002430 Tens of kilometers above Earth's surface, high-energy particles from outer space constantly strike the atmosphere, creating showers of energetic secondary particles that rain down from the sky. Approximately one of these particles passes through your head every second, but the "cosmic rays" that produce them are still not fully understood. In a recent paper posted to the arXiv preprint server, the ATLAS Collaboration describes how its first measurement of proton–oxygen collisions at the LHC could help us learn more about them. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-atlas-cosmic-ray-laboratory-protonoxygen.html General Physics Tue, 21 Apr 2026 14:40:03 EDT news695990881 Researchers from Bar-Ilan University have successfully recreated key features of black hole physics in a laboratory setting using an innovative optical system that mimics how black holes behave after violent cosmic events such as collisions or mergers. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-laser-black-holes-extreme-physics.html General Physics Tue, 21 Apr 2026 10:20:03 EDT news695984701 The cosmological constant is the mathematical description of the energy that drives the ever-accelerating expansion of the cosmos. It's also the source of one of the most enduring and confounding problems in modern physics. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mathematical-universe-cosmological-constant-problem.html General Physics Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:40:01 EDT news695907962 An international research team of the A1 Collaboration at the Mainz Microtron (MAMI) of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has succeeded in determining the binding energy of the hypertriton with unprecedented precision. This experiment provides crucial new insights into the interaction between hyperons and nucleons—an aspect of the strong nuclear force that has so far remained insufficiently understood. The results show that the hypertriton is significantly more strongly bound than many earlier experiments suggested. The journal Physical Review Letters has recently published the study. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-hypertriton-tightly-bound-sharpening-picture.html General Physics Mon, 20 Apr 2026 15:50:02 EDT news695914561 Recent findings from research we have been carrying out at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Cern in Geneva suggest that we might be closing in on signs of undiscovered physics. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-lhc-decay-anomaly-reveals-standard.html General Physics Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:30:01 EDT news695913603 Few concepts in physics are as familiar, yet as enigmatic, as time. In Einstein's theory of relativity, time is not absolute: its passage depends on motion and gravity. But when combined with quantum physics, this relativistic form of time becomes even more counterintuitive. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-quantum-lab-clock-young.html General Physics Mon, 20 Apr 2026 11:00:12 EDT news695634001 The rapid increase in electric vehicle adoption in recent years has highlighted a crucial issue: the energy conversion efficiency of electric motors. In electric motors, iron loss or magnetic hysteresis loss is a primary source of energy dissipation, arising from the repeated reversal of magnetic fields within the motor core, made of soft magnetic materials. Moreover, electric motors typically operate in high-temperature environments, where thermal effects can lead to partial demagnetization, further complicating energy-loss mechanisms. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-maze-magnetic-patterns-evolve-materials.html General Physics Mon, 20 Apr 2026 10:40:03 EDT news695894941 Picture two materials sandwiched together. The boundary between them may appear flat, but, in reality, it is full of tiny bumps and dents. Suddenly, the materials are hit with a shockwave. If that wave hits a bump in the material interface, it slows down. If it hits a dent, it accelerates forward. This imbalance creates fast, narrow jets of material—called the Richtmyer-Meshkov (RM) instability. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tiny-voids-fusion-stable-powerful.html General Physics Sun, 19 Apr 2026 14:00:03 EDT news695572592 According to our current understanding of the universe, quarks are fundamental, point-like particles: basic building blocks that are not made up of smaller particles. A recent paper from the CMS Collaboration describes how it probed quarks to the scale of 10-20 meters to test this premise. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-deep-quarks-cms-probes-meters.html General Physics Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:10:01 EDT news695572442 Gravity, as most people understand it, is the familiar force that pulls a falling apple toward Earth. But for astronomers and theoretical physicists, it is also a vexing invisible architect that guides the shape and evolution of the largest cosmic structures across the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-gravity-newton-einstein-cosmic-scales.html General Physics Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:40:04 EDT news695485862 In quantum physics, objects can exist in multiple states at the same time—a phenomenon known as quantum superposition, where a particle does not have a single definite value of position or momentum until it is measured. A major open question is whether gravity, one of the fundamental forces, also follows the quantum rule. One way to examine this is through gravity-induced entanglement, in which two objects that interact only via gravity become quantum mechanically linked. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-mirror-positioning-method-quantum-gravity.html General Physics Tue, 14 Apr 2026 14:40:05 EDT news695386261 From ketchup to quicksand, non-Newtonian fluids have long fascinated and puzzled scientists. Unlike ordinary fluids, their flow properties change depending on how much force is applied, but the precise mechanics governing this behavior remain poorly understood—particularly under rapid deformation. Now, a team led by Xiang Cheng at the University of Minnesota has used droplet impacts to probe these dynamics in new detail, uncovering behaviors which have eluded physicists so far. Their findings appear in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-droplet-impacts-reveal-physics-thickening.html General Physics Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:40:04 EDT news695376943 In a tank on the bottom floor of a University of Chicago research laboratory, scientists summon "The Blob" into existence by firing water jets to create an artfully choreographed series of rings. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-blob-tank-scientists-secrets-turbulence.html General Physics Tue, 14 Apr 2026 09:00:01 EDT news695374501 An international team of scientists, including researchers from Loughborough University, has developed a method to dramatically speed up the discovery and design of advanced materials. The study, published in Physical Review Letters, shows how the new approach can map complex phase diagrams in as little as a day—rather than weeks or months—and pinpoint where important structures, including crystals and quasicrystals, are likely to form. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-rapid-method-uncovers-hidden-materials.html General Physics Mon, 13 Apr 2026 17:20:03 EDT news695311861 The simplicity of a hydrogen atom makes it an ideal model for studying atomic structure and interactions. Yet, despite the fact that its simplest form consists of only one proton and one electron, physicists have had a hard time pinning down the exact charge radius of the proton. But a new study, published in the journal Physical Review Letters, outlines a method of measurement that helps to resolve some past discrepancies. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-year-proton-mystery-ultra-precise.html General Physics Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:50:02 EDT news695304877 Physicists in China have simulated the effect of "false vacuum decay": a phenomenon believed to play out constantly in the seemingly empty expanses of space, and which one theory even suggests could bring an abrupt end to the entire universe. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, Yu-Xin Chao and colleagues at Tsinghua University, Beijing, mimicked the effect using a simple tabletop experiment. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tabletop-atoms-universe-doomsday-vacuum.html General Physics Mon, 13 Apr 2026 12:00:04 EDT news695295202 Acoustic metamaterials are a fast-evolving family of materials which manipulate sound waves in ever more advanced ways. Now, a team led by Changqing Xu at Nanjing Normal University in China has engineered an acoustic metamaterial, a "ghost tunnel": a structure which acts as a near-perfect waveguide for sound entering through its ends, while being essentially invisible to waves incident on its sides. The results, published in Physical Review Letters, could open new avenues for manipulating sound waves in complex signal environments. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ghost-tunnels-staying-invisible.html General Physics Mon, 13 Apr 2026 10:20:06 EDT news695290653