Latest Subatomic particle Stories

Physicists may have glimpsed a particle that is a leading candidate for mysterious dark matter but say conclusive evidence remains elusive.A 9-year search from a unique observatory in an old iron mine 2,000 feet underground has yielded two possible detections of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs. But physicists, who include two University of Florida researchers, say there is about a one in four chance that the detections were merely background noise -- meaning that a worldwide...

An exotic form of carbon has been found to have an extra large nucleus, dwarfing even the nuclei of much heavier elements like copper and zinc, in experiments performed in a particle accelerator in Japan. The discovery is reported in the current issue of Physical Review Letters and highlighted with a Viewpoint by Kirby Kemper and Paul Cottle of Florida State University in the February 8 issue of Physics.Carbon-22, which has a nucleus comprised of 16 neutrons and 6 protons, is the heaviest...

Study of ultracold atoms proves theory about universal quantum mechanismUsing atoms at temperatures colder than deep space, Rice University physicists have delivered overwhelming proof for a once-scoffed-at theory that's become a hotbed for research some 40 years after it first appeared. In a paper available online in Science Express, Rice's team offers experimental evidence for a universal quantum mechanism that allows trios of particles to appear and reappear at higher energy levels in an...

Ytterbium was discovered in 1878, but until it recently became useful in atomic clocks, the soft metal rarely made the news. Now ytterbium has a new claim to scientific fame. Measurements with ytterbium-174, an isotope with 70 protons and 104 neutrons, have shown the largest effects of parity violation in an atom ever observed "“ a hundred times larger than the most precise measurements made so far, with the element cesium."Parity" assumes that, on the atomic scale, nature behaves...

A U.S.-led team of physicists says it has created the first rudimentary, solid-state quantum processor, moving science closer to building a quantum computer. Yale University scientists said they also used the two-qubit superconducting chip to successfully run elementary algorithms, such as a simple search, demonstrating quantum information processing with a solid-state device for the first time. Our processor can perform only a few very simple quantum tasks, which have been demonstrated...

 A new calculation clarifies the complicated relationship between protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus and offers a fascinating resolution of the famous NuTeV Anomaly.The calculation, published in the journal Physical Review Letters on June 26, was carried out by a collaboration of researchers from the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Tokai University and the University of Washington. It grew out of attempts to make sense of the complex...

An orbiting satellite has detected an anomalous energy signal that European astronomers say could be a sign of dark matter, the AFP reported.The researchers said they may have picked up a signature of this strange phenomenon, but more work is needed. Ordinary material such as atoms comprise perhaps as little as five percent of what makes up the cosmos, according to previous studies by astrophysicists calculating the amount of matter in the Universe. Data suggests the remainder originates...

U.S. scientists say they've set a record for the world's smallest letters by pushing individual molecules into specifically arranged patterns. Stanford University researchers said their achievement shattered the long-held belief that one bit per atom was the limit for encoding information. Assistant Professor Hari Manoharan and graduate student Christopher Moon said they were able to encode 35 bits of information per electron and write letters so small they are composed of subatomic bits of...

Storing information in electron wavesStanford researchers have reclaimed bragging rights for creating the world's smallest writing, a distinction the university first gained in 1985 and lost in 1990.How small is the writing? The letters in the words are assembled from subatomic sized bits as small as 0.3 nanometers, or roughly one third of a billionth of a meter.The researchers encoded the letters "S" and "U" (as in Stanford University) within the interference patterns...

Calibration tool will reveal when hypothetical particles are detectedSeveral research projects are underway to try to detect particles that may make up the mysterious "dark matter" believed to dominate the universe's mass. But the existing detectors have a problem: They also pick up particles of ordinary matter -- hurtling neutrons that masquerade as the elusive dark-matter particles the instruments are designed to find.MIT physicist Jocelyn Monroe has a solution. A new detector she...