All articles tagged with #particle physics
Scientists completed a seven-year upgrade to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory by drilling six holes about 1.5 miles deep at the South Pole and stringing hundreds of light sensors through the ice, creating a denser network to catch fleeting neutrino footprints and help answer fundamental questions about the universe.
A Hackaday Links roundup: RHIC is shut down to make way for the Electron-Ion Collider; Waymo discusses remote assistance for unresolved driving scenarios; Bitcoin dips below $63k before rebounding amid AI-driven uncertainty and political context; Windows 3D Viewer is deprecated with a slick web-based replacement; NASA reports Curiosity’s Martian organics not fully explained by non-biological processes; debates over low-Earth orbit satellite density highlight space’s vast scale; and Xikipedia offers a continuous Simple English Wikipedia feed.
More than a decade after the Higgs discovery, particle physics has yet to find new physics beyond the Standard Model, prompting a crisis about the field’s direction. Proposals for big next-gen machines (the Future Circular Collider, muon colliders) and smaller-scale tests (axions, hidden valleys) mingle with advances in AI-assisted data analysis, but there’s no discovery guarantee and talent is drifting toward other fields. In short, particle physics isn’t dead, but it’s hard—and the path forward remains uncertain.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland will be shut down starting June for about five years to undergo major upgrades to increase its collision capacity, with the goal of enabling more advanced experiments. During this period, CERN is also planning the development of the Future Circular Collider, a much larger and more powerful accelerator, although its future is uncertain due to high costs and scientific debates. The LHC's shutdown is part of ongoing efforts to deepen our understanding of fundamental physics, including the universe's origins.
The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is being shut down temporarily for upgrades to increase its collision capacity, with a long-term plan to replace it with the even larger Future Circular Collider, aiming to continue groundbreaking discoveries in fundamental physics despite high costs and scientific debates.
New results from the MicroBooNE experiment have ruled out the existence of the long-suspected sterile neutrino, narrowing the options for explaining neutrino anomalies and paving the way for future research into other exotic particles and fundamental questions in physics.
China's Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), after 17 years of development, has begun operations and achieved unprecedented precision in detecting neutrinos, potentially solving key questions about their mass hierarchy and advancing our understanding of fundamental physics.
Mark Thomson, a renowned physicist, takes over as Cern's director general and plans to shut down the LHC for upgrades to enhance its capabilities, while also preparing for the ambitious Future Circular Collider project to continue exploring fundamental questions about the universe.
A new study suggests that fusion reactors might inadvertently produce axions, a candidate for dark matter, through interactions of neutrons with reactor walls, turning these energy devices into potential dark matter factories and offering a novel way to detect elusive particles using existing infrastructure.
A new theoretical study suggests that the masses of particles like W and Z bosons could originate from the twisted geometry of hidden seven-dimensional spaces called G2 manifolds, offering an alternative to the Higgs field and potentially explaining phenomena like dark matter and cosmic expansion. The researchers propose the existence of a new particle, the Torstone, which could be detected in future experiments.
The KATRIN experiment has conducted the most sensitive search yet for sterile neutrinos using tritium beta-decay measurements, but found no evidence for their existence, thereby narrowing the parameter space and challenging previous anomalies suggesting such particles. Future data collection and upgrades aim to further explore higher mass ranges, potentially shedding light on dark matter candidates.
The article discusses the upcoming year 2026 in science, highlighting major events such as the CERN LHC upgrade, advancements in quantum computing, new vaccines and medications, ongoing trends in weight-loss drugs, regulatory rollbacks affecting environmental protections, China's Five-Year Plan including nuclear and drilling projects, and breakthroughs in gene editing therapies. Despite scientific progress, the industry faces credibility and funding challenges, especially in the U.S.
Scientists at the SNO+ experiment have observed neutrino-induced transmutation of carbon-13 into nitrogen-13 for the first time, a rare event due to neutrinos' elusive nature, made possible by the large volume of liquid scintillator and the experiment's underground location.
A consortium of private donors has pledged 860 million euros to support CERN's proposed Future Circular Collider, a major new particle accelerator intended to succeed the Large Hadron Collider and explore fundamental physics, pending approval by CERN Member States around 2028.
As 2025 concludes, the Standard Model of particle physics and cosmology remains robust despite numerous puzzles and challenges, with recent experiments reinforcing its predictions and no definitive evidence yet for physics beyond it. Key mysteries like dark matter, dark energy, and the matter-antimatter asymmetry persist, but current data strongly support the existing framework, emphasizing the need for continued investment in experimental and observational science to uncover deeper truths.