Physics

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics recognizes three scientists for improving our understanding of the universe's history and Earth's place in the cosmos.

The Kamioka Gravitational-wave Detector (KAGRA) in Japan will join LIGO in the US and Virgo in Italy to triangulate where any waves are coming from.

A new experiment shows that even massive molecules containing up to 2,000 atoms can exist in two places simultaneously.

Scientists from Austria and China throw Schrodinger's Cat for a loop.

Although it outnumbers regular matter by a ratio of five to one, dark matter is frustratingly elusive, and efforts to hunt down different types of candidate particles have revealed no direct trace. Now, researchers from Max Planck have proposed a new hypothetical particle that might be behind dark matter – the superheavy gravitino – and outlined just how we might find them.

The universe is believed to be expanding at an accelerating rate, thanks to a mysterious force dubbed dark energy. But how exactly does this force work?

Few things are as mysterious as dark matter. Now, a physicist from Johns Hopkins University has outlined a new theory that helps to explain the stuff but at the same time makes it seem even more bizarre. According to the study, dark matter may have originated before the Big Bang.

The LIGO detector uses 4-km-long (2.5-mi) arms. But now, a Northwestern University team is aiming to build a gravitational wave detector small enough to fit on a tabletop, which could detect signals the larger facilities miss.

Physicists at Stanford and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have narrowed down the search for dark matter. Using observations of galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, the team found that dark matter is likely lighter than previously thought – and interacts even less with normal matter.

Hypothetical “chameleon” particles could be behind dark energy, and physicists at CERN have been searching for these particles streaming from the Sun. Now, the team has reported the first results of their search.

Researchers have produced what may very well be the first pieces of art made using non-classical matter. The team has reproduced classic artworks like the Mona Lisa and Starry Night on a “quantum canvas” as small as a human hair, by projecting light onto Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs).

We’re now getting new gravitational wave detections so often it almost doesn’t seem special anymore. Barely a month into a new observation run, the LIGO/Virgo collaboration has now reported five new events, including what may be the first ever detection of a black hole swallowing a neutron star.