Particle physics

Physicists have outlined a relatively simple new way to create antimatter, by firing two lasers at each other to reproduce the conditions near a neutron star, converting light into matter and antimatter. Doing so could unlock cosmological mysteries.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have created a crystal made entirely of electrons. The structures have been theorized for decades, but this marks the first time they’ve been experimentally confirmed in the lab.

A subatomic particle has been found switching between matter and antimatter, in Large Hadron Collider data. It turns out an unfathomably tiny weight difference between two particles could have saved the universe from annihilation soon after it began.

Quantum technology is bursting with potential, but controlling atoms and molecules keeps proving tricky. In a breakthrough new study, physicists have successfully wrangled thousands of molecules into a single unified quantum state for the first time.

There’s invisible, undetectable stuff all around us, and we call it dark matter. There’s plenty of evidence that this stuff is very real, but what exactly is dark matter? How do we know it’s there? And how are scientists looking for it?

Scientists at CERN have used lasers to cool down antimatter for the first time. The milestone could help unlock some of the secrets of this weird substance, including why it didn’t annihilate the universe soon after the Big Bang.

In a move that would please the fictional Star Trek engineer Mr. Scott, CERN is working on ways to store and transport antimatter. This isn't to power any starships secretly under construction, but as a way to better study antiprotons.

CERN’s Large Hadron Collider probes the fringes of known physics, and now the facility has found particles not behaving as predicted. While it’s early days, the discovery hints at the existence of new particles or forces beyond the Standard Model.

Princeton physicists have accidentally discovered an unexpected quantum behavior in an insulator that was thought to be unique to metals. The find suggests a brand new type of quantum particle, which the team calls a neutral fermion.

Borexino, a huge underground particle detector in Italy, has picked up a never-before-seen type of neutrino coming from the Sun. These neutrinos confirm a 90-year-old hypothesis and complete our picture of the fusion cycle of the Sun and other stars.

Antimatter is a tricky substance to store and transport, mostly because it annihilates any container you try to put it in. Now CERN researchers have outlined a new antimatter trap designed to safely carry the volatile stuff to new facilities.

Scientists have so far been unable to detect dark matter. But a new detector design, using an array of billions of tiny pendulums, could finally break the silence by searching for the effects of dark matter’s incredibly strong gravitational pull.