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.
Working at the same place in similar fields, Michael S. Smith and Chang-Hong Yu enjoy a situation not too unusual among married couples. Not so ordinary is their line of work.
University scientists are the backbone of particle physics; like cogs in a complex machine, they deliver expertise, funding, and equipment exactly where needed. At Vanderbilt, theyre developing ways to handle a flood of data from the Large Hadron Collider.
The first results from the MiniBooNE neutrino experiment, released in April, showed no hints of a fourth neutrino. But they contained a puzzling signal that could lead to new physics.
Take one part unidentified goop. Add three parts mysterious energy. Throw in a dash of ordinary atoms. Mix. Compress. Explode. Let expand for 13.7 billion years.