Tag

Particle Physics

All articles tagged with #particle physics

science9 days ago•88 min saved

CERN to upgrade the LHC to HiLumi, boosting collisions by about 10x through 2030

The Large Hadron Collider at CERN has entered a four-year Long Shutdown 3 to upgrade into the High-Luminosity LHC, which will raise collision rates by about tenfold and enable roughly 380 million Higgs bosons over its lifetime. The upgrade, which involves replacing thousands of magnets and other components, aims to deliver a much larger data set to probe the Higgs, dark matter, and the early universe. Operations are slated to resume in 2030 and continue into the 2040s, after which a new, higher-energy accelerator may replace it.

via Live Science|

#cern #higgs-boson #hilumi-lhc

science17 days ago•10 min saved

Chasing Ghost Particles: The Global Quest to Catch Neutrinos

Physicists have built some of the world’s most ambitious detectors—buried underground, underwater, and under Antarctic ice—to catch neutrinos, elusive particles that rarely interact with matter. From Pauli’s proposal and the first detection in the 1950s to solar-neutrino puzzles and modern observatories like Kamiokande, Super-Kamiokande, SNO, IceCube, KM3NeT, JUNO, DUNE, and Hyper-K, the field has shown neutrinos come in flavors that oscillate due to mass, guiding experimental design and enabling study of stars, the cosmos, and fundamental physics.

via Quanta Magazine|

#astrophysics #neutrino-detectors #neutrino-oscillations

science26 days ago•13 min saved

Counting Particles Reveals 995.5 Degrees of Freedom in the Standard Model

The article explains that counting elementary particles isn’t straightforward: textbooks list 17, but including antiparticles, color charges, chirality, and polarization expands the tally; a 2011 theorem shows the Standard Model’s effective degrees of freedom total 995.5, meaning the true count depends on energy scale and how one defines particles.

via Quanta Magazine|

#antimatter #degrees-of-freedom #particle-physics

science29 days ago•3 min saved

JUNO Unveils Early Clues in the Neutrino Flavor Mystery

JUNO, a 20-ktonne underground detector in China, released two months of data showing precise measurements of how neutrinos change flavor and offering clues about their masses; the detector observes electron antineutrinos from nearby reactors via inverse beta decay and aims to resolve the neutrino-mass hierarchy, with cross-checks expected from Hyper-Kamiokande and DUNE in the coming decade; findings published in Nature.

via ScienceAlert|

#antineutrinos #juno #neutrino-flavors

physics1 month ago•6 min saved

JUNO sharpens neutrino-oscillation picture, edging toward mass hierarchy

With about two months of data, the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) measured two key reactor-neutrino oscillation parameters with 1.6× better precision than decades of previous experiments. The results, published in Nature, advance the effort to determine the neutrino mass ordering and shed light on the origin of neutrino masses, using a 20,000‑ton scintillator detector instrumented with 43,000 photomultiplier tubes observing reactor antineutrinos ~53 km away.

via Nature|

#juno #neutrino-mass #neutrino-oscillation

science1 month ago•14 min saved

China's JUNO detector reveals first major neutrino findings

China's Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) has released its first major neutrino findings from its underground detector, marking a milestone in the study of these elusive ghost particles.

via AP News|

#china #juno #neutrinos

science2 months ago•6 min saved

Heavy Particle Could Bridge Ordinary Matter to a Hidden Fifth Dimension

A theoretical team proposes a previously unknown heavy particle that mixes with the Higgs boson to act as a conduit between visible matter and dark matter residing in a warped fifth dimension. This could help explain fermion masses and the dark-to-visible matter ratio, but the particle would be too heavy for current colliders; future machines or gravitational-wave observations might provide indirect evidence.

via The Daily Galaxy|

#cosmology #dark-matter #fifth-dimension

science2 months ago•9 min saved

Muon g-2 Mystery Reconciled as Standard Model Gains Ground

A long-standing puzzle about the muon's anomalous magnetic moment (g-2) is resolved by a new, ultra-precise lattice QCD calculation that aligns the Standard Model prediction with experimental measurements within half a standard deviation. The result removes the need for a hypothetical fifth force and reinforces quantum field theory as the foundation of particle physics, though it may still leave a narrow window for new physics to appear in future experiments.

via SciTechDaily|

#g-2 #lattice-qcd #muon

science2 months ago•7 min saved

Rare Meson Bound in Nuclei Points to How Mass Emerges

Physicists report evidence for an eta-prime mesic nucleus—an exotic, short-lived bound state where an eta-prime meson sits inside a carbon nucleus—hinting that meson mass can change in dense nuclear matter and offering clues about how vacuum structure shapes mass.

via Science Daily|

#eta-prime-meson #mass-generation #meson-nucleus-bound-states

science2 months ago•17 min saved

Vacuum spawns matter: particles emerge from empty space in collider experiments

In high-energy proton collisions, scientists observed particle pairs emerging directly from the vacuum, with correlated spins that persist through short-lived decays, suggesting vacuum fluctuations contribute to the mass and structure of visible matter. Data from Brookhaven’s RHIC using the STAR detector point to vacuum as an active source of matter, offering a new way to study how vacuum structure, spin, and mass generation are connected, while further tests at different energies are planned.

via Earth.com|

#mass-origin #particle-physics #physics

science3 months ago•17 min saved

Sterile Neutrino Hypothesis Fails the Latest Tests

Decades of hints for a light sterile neutrino have collapsed after recent null results (KATRIN and MicroBooNE, plus reactor and gallium studies), effectively ruling out the simplest sterile-neutrino explanation for several anomalies. While the LSND/Miniboone/gallium puzzles remain unexplained, physicists are pursuing more complex neutrino scenarios and await data from JUNO, DUNE, and Isodar to map neutrino masses and oscillations.

via Quanta Magazine|

#anomalies #neutrino-oscillations #neutrinos

science3 months ago•2 min saved

LHCb Discovers Xi-cc-plus, a New Two-Charm Baryon

Scientists at CERN's LHCb have identified a new baryon, Xi-cc-plus, composed of two charm quarks and one down quark. Weighing about four times the mass of a proton, it offers a testbed for quantum chromodynamics and the strong force; discovered after 2023 detector upgrades, it is only the second observed baryon with two heavy quarks and has a lifetime up to six times shorter than a similar earlier baryon.

via Futurism|

#baryons #cern #lhc

science3 months ago•3 min saved

CERN uncovers Xi-cc-plus, a heavy new cousin of the proton after decades-long hunt

British researchers at CERN report the discovery of Xi-cc-plus, a proton-like particle four times heavier than a regular proton, found in data from the upgraded LHCb detector after a 20-year search, promising new insights into the strong force that binds atomic nuclei.

via New York Post|

#cern #lhc #particle-physics

science3 months ago•4 min saved

CERN Spots New Double-Charmed Baryon Xi-cc-plus After Upgrades

CERN’s LHCb collaboration announced the discovery of a new baryon called Xi-cc-plus, containing two charm quarks and one down quark, making it the 80th identified particle and the first new one found after the LHCb upgrades completed in 2023. It is heavier than a proton and has a shorter lifetime—about six times shorter than a similar earlier particle—posing detection challenges but providing a test bed for quantum chromodynamics and guiding future collider plans like the Future Circular Collider.

via ScienceAlert|

#cern #lhcb #particle-physics

science4 months ago•16 min saved

Antarctic Ice Upgrades Listen for Neutrino Clues to the Cosmos

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.

via The Washington Post|

#antarctica #astronomy #icecube-neutrino-observatory