Browse Physics

Two collaborations at the Tevatron have combined data from their searches for the Higgs boson and report evidence of a new particle decaying into heavy quark pairs. This could be the first experimental evidence that the same mechanism that gives mass to the carriers of the weak force also underlies the mass of quarks.

Particle discoveries attract the most attention, but determining where not to look can be just as important.

A new analysis shows that it is possible to look for dark-matter particles with mass far below 1 giga-electron-volt by using atomic ionization.

Theorists obtain a general theorem that predicts the number of Goldstone modes generated by spontaneous symmetry breaking in nonrelativistic systems.

A new baryon has been discovered by the CMS collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider.

Clues about the briefly liberated quarks and gluons in high-energy collisions lie in the relic hadrons they leave behind.

The decay of top quarks could reveal physics beyond the standard model, but so far shows nothing unusual.

The existence of three families of fundamental particles may result from our universe behaving like a topological insulator, according to a theoretical proposal.

The Daya Bay Collaboration in China has discovered an unexpectedly large neutrino oscillation.

Two experimental collaborations at Fermilab report a new measurement of the W boson mass that leads to a better prediction of the mass of the Higgs boson.

Ultracold atoms could be used to simulate physical phenomena beyond three spatial dimensions.

The dominance of matter over antimatter is further extended with a balloon experiment ruling out the presence of antihelium in cosmic rays at the lowest level to date.

There are encouraging hints that the Higgs boson may have been observed at the Large Hadron Collider.

Differences between the decay properties of charm-carrying mesons and those of their antiparticles may carry clues to the mystery of the missing antimatter in the Universe.

Researchers have measured the distance over which electrons generate photons with a simple mechanical technique, allowing better understanding of how the photons are produced.

Interactions between primordial photons and axions may be why the accepted model of nucleosynthesis overestimates the abundance of the isotope lithium-7.

An underground neutrino detector has found the first evidence of a nuclear reaction that produces deuterium in the sun.

The breaking of charge-parity symmetry at lower temperatures than expected in the initial stages of the big bang could explain the abundance of matter over antimatter in the universe.

The Millikan oil drop experiment, published in final form in 1913, demonstrated that charge comes in discrete chunks and was a bridge between classical electromagnetism and modern quantum physics.

Liquids that approach an often-quoted lower limit for viscosity are deemed “perfect,” but now this lower limit is itself being questioned.