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Category: particle physics – Page 8

LHC delivers a record number of particle collisions in 2025

All experiments broke records in the final full operating year of the third run of the LHC.

After a few final laps around the ring, the beams of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) were paused at 6.00 a.m. on Monday, 8 December for the usual year-end technical stop. Launched on 5 May, the LHC’s 11th year-long run of high-energy physics broke a new record for integrated luminosity by delivering 125 fb-1 to both the ATLAS and the CMS experiments. Over the full lifetime of the LHC, ATLAS and CMS have now each delivered an integrated luminosity of 500 fb-1, equating to approximately 50 million billion particle collisions.

All four LHC experiments performed extremely well throughout the 2025 proton run, detecting more collisions than in any previous year and reporting data-taking efficiencies of more than 90%. LHCb continued to benefit from the significant upgrades that were completed in 2023, further increasing its recorded luminosity to a new record of 11.8 fb-1 in 2025.

Mini-vortices in nanopores accelerate ion transport for faster supercapacitor charging

Tiny cavities in energy storage devices form small vortices that help with charging, according to a research team led by TU Darmstadt. This previously unknown phenomenon could advance the development of faster storage devices.

Solar and wind are the energy sources of the future, but they are subject to significant natural fluctuations. Storage solutions are therefore particularly important for a successful energy transition. Rechargeable batteries achieve very high energy densities by storing energy chemically. However, this high energy density comes at the price of long charging times and a dependence on precious raw materials such as cobalt.

In contrast to rechargeable batteries, so-called supercapacitors store energy in electric double layers: a voltage is applied between two electrodes. They are immersed in a liquid in which tiny charged particles, ions, float. The positive and negative ions move in opposite directions and accumulate in charged, nanometer-thick layers, the electric double layers, on the surfaces of the electrodes. In order to provide as much surface area as possible for the accumulation of ions, supercapacitors use porous electrodes that have many tiny pores, like a sponge.

New nanomagnet production process improves efficiency and cuts costs

Researchers at HZDR have partnered with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, and the Institute of Nuclear Physics in the Polish Academy of Sciences to develop a method that facilitates the manufacture of particularly efficient magnetic nanomaterials in a relatively simple process based on inexpensive raw materials.

Using a highly focused ion beam, they imprint magnetic nanostrips consisting of tiny, vertically aligned nanomagnets onto the materials. As the researchers have reported in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, this geometry makes the material highly sensitive to external magnetic fields and current pulses.

Nanomagnets play a key role in modern information technologies. They facilitate fast data storage, precise magnetic sensors, novel developments in spintronics, and, in the future, quantum computing. The foundations of all these applications are functional materials with particular magnetic structures that can be customized on the nanoscale and precisely controlled.

Student researcher leads discovery of fastest gamma-ray burst ever recorded

Sarah Dalessi, a fifth-year student in the College of Science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), a part of The University of Alabama System, is the lead author of a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal detailing the discovery of the fastest gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever recorded.

GRB 230307A is a gamma-ray burst in the ultrarelativistic category, meaning the velocity of the GRB’s jet, a focused beam of high-energy particles and photons, came within 99.99998% of the speed of light—186,000 miles per second—making it the fastest GRB ever observed. The observation was made possible with data from the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor, one of two instruments on NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.

“The Lorentz factor is the measure of speed of the jet here, and 1,600 is the highest we ever measured,” explains Dr. Peter Veres, an assistant professor who works in the UAH Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research (CSPAR) and is co-author on the study.

From light to logic: Ultrafast quantum switching in 2D materials

Scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay have found a way to use light to control and read tiny quantum states inside atom-thin materials. The simple technique could pave the way for computers that are dramatically faster and consume far less power than today’s electronics.

The materials studied are just one atom thick—far thinner than a human hair—and are known as two-dimensional (2D) semiconductors. Inside these materials, electrons can sit in one of two distinct quantum states, called valleys. These valleys, named K and K′, can be thought of as two different “locations” that an electron can choose between. Because there are two options, researchers have long imagined using them like the 0 and 1 of digital computing, but on a quantum level. This idea is the foundation of a rapidly growing research field called valleytronics.

However, being able to reliably control which valley electrons occupy—and to switch between them quickly and on demand—has been a major challenge. “Previous methods required complicated experimental setups with carefully tuned circularly polarized lasers and often multiple laser pulses, and they only worked under specific conditions,” said Prof. Gopal Dixit.

CERN upbeat as China halts particle accelerator mega-project

The chief of the CERN physics laboratory says China’s decision to pause its major particle accelerator project presents an “opportunity” to ensure Europe’s rival plan goes ahead.

Ten years ago, China announced its intention to build the Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC), which at 100 kilometers (62 miles) long would be the world’s largest particle accelerator.

But Beijing recently put the project on ice, CERN’s director-general Fabiola Gianotti told a small group of journalists at a recent briefing.

In a googol years, our universe will be empty

I personally don’t believe that our universe will end because the universe has access to the quantum realm which can rebirth particles into existence but I still think the universe can be saved from entropy by mastering universe control with kardeshev type 5 civilization technology or type infinity civilization technology. Think even stars can become immortal essentially if we can recharge them which I believe that universes can become immortal essentially aswell but would require massive amounts of energy and control of their particles with a possible holographic magnonics essentially patching areas or rebirthing areas.

Brooklyn is not expanding.

Sum-frequency microscope can image an invisible 2D material

Researchers from the Physical Chemistry and Theory departments at the Fritz Haber Institute have found a new way to image layers of boron nitride that are only a single atom thick. This material is usually nearly invisible in optical microscopes because it has no optical resonances.

Icy hot plasmas: Fluffy, electrically charged ice grains reveal new plasma dynamics

When a gas is highly energized, its electrons get torn from the parent atoms, resulting in a plasma—the oft-forgotten fourth state of matter (along with solid, liquid, and gas). When we think of plasmas, we normally think of extremely hot phenomena such as the sun, lightning, or maybe arc welding, but there are situations in which icy cold particles are associated with plasmas. Images of distant molecular clouds from the James Webb Space Telescope feature such hot–cold interactions, with frozen dust illuminated by pockets of shocked gas and newborn stars.

Now a team of Caltech researchers has managed to recreate such an icy plasma system in the lab. They created a plasma in which electrons and positively charged ions exist between ultracold electrodes within a mostly neutral gas environment, injected water vapor, and then watched as tiny ice grains spontaneously formed.

They studied the behavior of the grains using a camera with a long-distance microscope lens. The team was surprised to find that extremely “fluffy” grains developed under these conditions and grew into fractal shapes—branching, irregular structures that are self-similar at various scales. And that structure leads to some unexpected physics.

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