https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. The universe's dominance by ordinary matter is compelling evidence that matter and antimatter are not perfect reflections of each other. However, known differences do not explain the scale of this imbalance, leaving open the possibility that unknown physics is responsible. A new analysis of meson decays, conducted by the LHCb collaboration, has narrowed the scope of the search for such a scenario while paving the way for more precise measurements in the future. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-matterantimatter-asymmetry-evidence-physics.html General Physics Thu, 12 Nov 2026 18:00:09 EST news713718121 Physicists at CERN report that they've detected evidence of a rare meson particle decay (B⁰→ µ⁺µ⁻) that occurs when the meson's beauty quark annihilates with a down-type quark. The pair decays into a muon and antimuon, which are particles similar to electrons. Because evidence for this decay helps test theoretical predictions from the Standard Model, physicists have been waiting for it since 1984, when it was first theorized. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-years-physicists-evidence-ultrarare-particle.html General Physics Thu, 05 Nov 2026 12:30:02 EST news713103421 Are the laws of physics truly the same everywhere in the universe? This fundamental principle, known as Lorentz invariance, lies at the heart of Einstein's theory of relativity. Yet some theories that seek to reconcile gravity with quantum physics suggest that it might not always hold. To investigate this possibility, researchers from the international KM3NeT collaboration analyzed 5,828 atmospheric neutrino candidate events detected by KM3NeT/ORCA, a neutrino telescope located deep in the Mediterranean Sea. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-einstein-laws-bottom-mediterranean-sea.html General Physics Wed, 04 Nov 2026 00:00:08 EST news712852321 Physicists have found evidence of a particle decay so rare that it is expected to occur only around once in every 10 billion "beauty" particles. The result, from the upgraded LHCb experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), follows a search spanning more than 40 years and brings physicists closer to exploring the "Zeptoverse"—an unexplored world that exists at distances of a billionth of a trillionth of a meter, or a "zeptometer," where new particles and forces of nature may be hiding. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-physicists-closer-zeptoverse-year-particle.html General Physics Tue, 03 Nov 2026 10:40:30 EST news712921381 Neutrinos are among the most abundant particles in the universe, but they are also among the most elusive. Nearly massless, they are produced by nuclear reactions in the sun, exploding stars, particle accelerators and even the decay of radioactive elements on Earth. They interact so weakly with ordinary matter that trillions pass through each person every second without leaving a trace. Studying these ghostly particles could help answer some of the biggest questions in physics, from the nature of dark matter to why matter exists at all. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-spine-machine-trail-ghost-particles.html General Physics Tue, 27 Oct 2026 15:10:01 EDT news712330469 The size of a nucleus (nuclear charge radius) is an important physical quantity that reflects the arrangement of protons and neutrons within the nucleus. Particularly in deformed nuclei, such as those of rare-earth elements, examining changes in the charge radius can deepen our understanding of nuclear structure and nuclear deformation. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-spectroscopy-method-enables-comparisons-nuclear.html General Physics Thu, 15 Oct 2026 19:00:01 EDT news711297241 Studying rare processes is part and parcel of particle physics, providing stringent tests of the Standard Model. At the recent International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP), the CMS and LHCb collaborations presented their latest research into one such process: the transformation of a beauty quark into a strange quark, a muon and the oppositely charged antimuon (b→sμ⁺μ⁻). https://phys.org/news/2026-10-rare-particle-decays-hint-deviations.html General Physics Wed, 14 Oct 2026 15:50:01 EDT news711209469 Superconductors are materials that conduct electricity with no resistance and expel magnetic fields when cooled to ultralow temperatures. And depending on their quantum structure, they can also showcase strange properties like magnetic levitation. But now things are getting a little weirder. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-scientists-superconductor-reversal-symmetry.html Superconductivity Fri, 02 Oct 2026 17:00:01 EDT news710164361 An instrument built to study cosmic rays has turned out to be a powerful tool for investigating thunderstorms. Earlier observations with the GRAPES-3 muon telescope revealed that thunderclouds can develop electrical potential differences far greater than those ever measured directly. But they also uncovered a puzzle: the instrument detected many more thunderstorm events in the eastern part of its field of view than in the western part. A new study by the same team, published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, has now explained why. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-cosmic-ray-particles-probe-powerful.html Earth Sciences Fri, 02 Oct 2026 00:00:02 EDT news710067792 Muons are constantly being created as cosmic rays collide with molecules in Earth's upper atmosphere. With their ability to penetrate far into dense, solid materials, these cosmic muons are often used to image the insides of objects that are otherwise hidden from view. However, the flow of these natural particles is far too slow for the technique to become both fast and reliable in practical settings. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-laser-muons-images-dense.html General Physics Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:20:01 EDT news709897836 Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have extended the search for evidence of microscopic black holes produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The formation of these tiny, fleeting objects at the LHC represents one way theorists have sought to resolve anomalies in our understanding of the basic structure of spacetime, while the method used to look for them demonstrates a new way of searching for new particles. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physicists-quantum-black-holes-lhc.html General Physics Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:20:07 EDT news708954181 Research initiated as part of a bachelor's thesis in physics at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) has culminated in a new analytical description of the muon-based calibration of dual-mirror Cherenkov telescopes. The work solves a problem that had remained open for more than 30 years because of the geometric complexity of these optical systems: determining precisely how much Cherenkov light produced by a muon reaches the camera, taking into account the shadows cast by the secondary mirror and the camera itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-muon-enable-precise-calibration-telescopes.html Astronomy Wed, 16 Sep 2026 15:50:01 EDT news708788401 Does gravity act equally on all particles in the universe, or are there differences between ordinary and exotic matter? Physics professor Anna Soter and her team at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen are investigating this question. "We have taken an important step toward carrying out an exciting experiment on this topic," says Soter. "We want to measure the gravitational interaction of the muon." https://phys.org/news/2026-09-particle-einstein-theory-gravity.html General Physics Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:40:06 EDT news708683461 Every second, particles zip through your body at nearly the speed of light. They rain down from a storm high in the sky, where cosmic rays, a powerful type of interstellar matter, constantly strike atoms in Earth's atmosphere. The impacts break them apart into a shower of particles that rain to the ground. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physicists-birth-cosmic-rainstorms-cern.html Astronomy Mon, 14 Sep 2026 11:00:04 EDT news708599702 Physicists at the University of Oxford have helped confirm that one of the strangest phenomena in physics—quantum entanglement—occurs even among some of the heaviest and most fleeting particles ever created. The discovery, made using the world's most powerful particle collider at CERN, has been published in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physicists-uncover-spooky-quantum-effect.html Quantum Physics Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:12:41 EDT news708599518 Is the universe as stable as we think it is? That's one of the big questions that particle physicists worldwide are preparing to answer with the Large Hadron Collider, or LHC—the world's most powerful particle accelerator—when its upgrade is completed in about four years. In the meantime, researchers, including a cohort at the University of Michigan, are working to sharpen their analytical tools and techniques to make the most of the LHC's current and future data. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ai-boosts-sensitivity-higgs-signatures.html General Physics Thu, 20 Aug 2026 17:10:01 EDT news706463461 A year after its final muon magnetic anomaly announcement, the Muon g-2 collaboration reports a new measurement of a different property of the muon: its electric dipole moment. The work is published on the arXiv preprint server. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-muon-constraints-forbidden-property-muons.html General Physics Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:20:03 EDT news705831042 For decades, a theory in physics has postulated the existence of a mirror world whose interaction with our own reality is extremely feeble. The particles in this mirror universe are also thought to be candidates for dark matter. Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have now examined some 25 billion neutrons—thereby ruling out, with a very high degree of certainty, their disappearance into the mirror world. The research is published in the journal Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ultracold-neutrons-dont-mirror-world.html General Physics Tue, 28 Jul 2026 12:40:03 EDT news704457870 Researchers at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have developed the world's first achromatic lens for neutron imaging. The lens overcomes a longstanding obstacle in the field: focusing neutrons of different wavelengths well enough to form a sharp, magnified image. With the lens, researchers can now image thick samples and follow processes inside bulky equipment such as furnaces, cryostats or pressure cells. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-world-neutron-lens-sharp-focus.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 14 Jul 2026 12:20:06 EDT news703241976 Superconductors have long been considered a promising technology for the energy systems of the future. They can conduct electricity without resistance, thus eliminating both conduction losses and waste heat. Up to now, however, superconductors have only been applied in special cases, as in the immensely powerful magnet coils of particle accelerators such as the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. This is because superconductors must be well cooled, down to extremely low temperatures for some materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-pressure-3d-superconductivity-tantalum-disulfide.html Superconductivity Tue, 07 Jul 2026 14:40:03 EDT news702646997 Millions of light-years away, millions of years ago, a star exploded. In this violent process, it ejected incredible amounts of mass, including carbon, nitrogen and oxygen—the building blocks of life. In fact, the star may have produced elements on the periodic table all the way up to iron. As it exploded, it spewed these elements into deep space. Only a burnt-out core remained. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-alpha-magnetic-spectrometer-reveals-cosmic.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:00:05 EDT news701011442 A new study published in Physical Review Letters by the IceCube Collaboration reports evidence that the energy spectrum of astrophysical neutrinos is not a simple straight line. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-icecube-cosmic-neutrino-spectrum-simple.html General Physics Fri, 29 May 2026 13:20:06 EDT news699105986 Protons and neutrons—the building blocks of matter—belong to a huge class of particles called hadrons. Hadrons are composite particles made of quarks that are bound together by the strong force. They are classified into two groups: baryons, which consist of three quarks (like protons and neutrons), and mesons, which are formed by a quark–antiquark pair. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-atlas-bc-meson-state.html General Physics Tue, 26 May 2026 09:10:18 EDT news699005377 While neutrinos are some of the most abundant particles in the universe, they remain among the least understood. One of the biggest puzzles is their mass: although experiments have shown that neutrinos must have some mass, pinning down exactly how much has proven extraordinarily difficult. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tritium-infused-graphene-sharpen-neutrino.html General Physics Tue, 19 May 2026 10:40:03 EDT news698400557 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 A quantum spin liquid is a phase of matter in which the magnetic moments in a material do not align or freeze, even at temperatures close to absolute zero (i.e., at 0 K). The experimental realization of this highly dynamic state could have important implications for the development of quantum computers and other technologies that operate leveraging quantum mechanical effects. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-pressure-tuned-quantum-liquid-behavior.html Condensed Matter Tue, 21 Apr 2026 08:00:02 EDT news695910243 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 Scientists have directly observed muonic molecules in resonance states for the first time, using a high-resolution X-ray detector, a new Science Advances study reports. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-muonic-molecules-critical-muon-catalyzed.html Plasma Physics Fri, 17 Apr 2026 11:40:02 EDT news695643962 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 When fundamental particles are heavier or lighter than expected, physicists' understanding of the universe can tip into the unknown. A particle that is just beyond its predicted mass can unravel scientists' assumptions about the forces that make up all of matter and space. But now, a new precision measurement has reset the balance and confirmed scientists' theories, at least for one of the universe's core building blocks. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-physicists-mass-fundamental-boson-particle.html General Physics Wed, 08 Apr 2026 12:00:08 EDT news694775101