In 2023, the ALICE experiment was ready for their best year yet, until a mysterious signal threatened everything. As the LHC wraps up its 2025 lead-ion run, physicists recall how they worked together to solve the puzzle.
For artist Lylie Fisher, particle physics is much more than a field of science. It is art: "Like art, particle physics deals with the invisible," says Fisher. "One portrays emotional and spiritual experiences; the other studies unseen matter and energy.
The big-bang theory of the early universe implies that the universe is immersed in a bath of microwave light, a cooled-down remnant of early high-temperature radiation, invisible to the naked eye.
Buried deep in the mountains of southern China, a new neutrino experiment would rely on a series of Chinese nuclear reactors and the brains of scientists from several countries.
The highest-energy particle accelerator in the world, Fermilab's Tevatron, boasts four miles of particle-accelerating circumference. But during thunderstorms it can become a bull's-eye for stray lightning bolts that demonstrate the intimidating power of nature.
At a special meeting in Lisbon on July 14, the CERN Council unanimously adopted a 17-point European Strategy for Particle Physics, based on the premise that "Europe should maintain and strengthen its central position in particle physics."
From the day it was completed in the early days of Fermilab, the design of the Meson Lab roof has been an aesthetic success and a structural nightmare. It leaks. Always has.
Cavities propel charged particles by transferring energy from electromagnetic waves to the particles, speeding them up. Superconducting cavities are made of material that can conduct electric currents without resistance at a very low temperature.
