Browse Physics

Richard Feynman invented the cartoon-like pictures of particle interactions that are essential to particle physicists and published the first one in 1949.

Monopoles with a single magnetic charge could be simulated in Bose-Einstein condensates

Measuring quantum interference of atomic matter waves may help detect experimental signatures of a fundamental theory of physics.

Gamma rays and energetic electrons detected on a Japanese mountaintop confirm that thunderstorms are efficient electron accelerators.

Colliding protons can remain intact but still generate new particles, according to results from Fermilab. A similarly clean process could produce the elusive Higgs particle at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.

A single neutrino left over from the big bang may have a quantum wave (wave function) that stretches across the universe.

New connections have been made between experimental astrophysical signatures and theories that unify the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces, called grand unified theories.

Detectors buried beneath the Antarctic ice place stringent limits on the presence of dark matter particles, called neutralinos, in the sun.

New results from the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, the most precise to date in the energy range $20\text{GeV}$ to $1\text{TeV}$, should help resolve whether cosmic rays composed of the lightest charged particles, i.e., electrons and positrons, come from dark matter or some other astrophysical source.

Study of variations in the mass and interactions of quarks may reveal whether fundamental constants are governed by “environmental selection rules” that lead to complex universes capable of having observers.

A research team used a laser to produce large amounts of anti-electrons, opening up new possibilities for research on exotic astrophysical objects.

Two antimatter measurements performed by the PAMELA experiment appear to lead to conflicting results. Now, theorists are exploring the extent to which these measurements can be reconciled.

Interactions between dark matter particles may explain unusual matter-antimatter production rates in the universe.

Many cosmologists believe that antiprotons in cosmic rays come from the annihilation of dark matter. Data from the PAMELA experiment on board a Russian satellite provide an important test of this possibility.

In particle physics theory, the presence of multiple metastable vacua gives rise to new possibilities for transitions between energy states.

Measurements at Fermilab hint at a new particle—but not the one they were looking to find.

The critical point is one of the main features of the phase diagram of strongly interacting quark-gluon matter. Finding this critical point in the lab will require luck and an understanding of the possible experimental signatures.

The results from a search at Fermilab for the Higgs boson edge closer to the predictions of the Standard Model.

Branes are multidimensional objects that arise in the formulation of string theory. Finding more general ways to describe these objects mathematically often leads to new insights into string theory itself.

New upper limits on the spin-independent interaction of WIMPs and nucleons marks the latest volley in the worldwide effort to detect and identify particle dark matter.