Particle Physics

Particle physics explores the fundamental constituents of matter and the forces by which they interact. Matter is built from quarks and leptons, while the strong, electromagnetic and weak interactions are mediated by force carriers—gluons, photons and the W and Z bosons—underpinned by the Higgs mechanism which endows particles with mass. Accelerator experiments probe ever higher energies to create and study heavy or ephemeral species, while cosmic-ray and neutrino observatories extend the reach to astrophysical scales. Precision measurements in collider and low-energy experiments test the quantum field theories of the Standard Model to parts per million, and have revealed subtle phenomena in hadron structure, neutrino oscillations and rare decays. Current challenges include understanding the origin of dark matter, seeking a quantum theory of gravity, unravelling the pattern of neutrino masses and mixing, and probing anomalies in hadronic interactions that may hint at new symmetries or force carriers.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Design studies for a multi-cubic-kilometre neutrino telescope in the western Pacific have identified optimal abyssal-plain sites at depths around 3.5 km. Detailed measurements of water-optical properties and currents inform a detector architecture that promises five-sigma sensitivity to steady TeV neutrino sources within a year, complementing northern-hemisphere observatories and enhancing sky coverage for pinpointing astrophysical accelerators.

Advances in variational Monte Carlo techniques using neural-network wavefunctions have delivered state-of-the-art ground-state energies for positron–molecule complexes without reliance on traditional basis sets. This approach accurately reproduces binding energies and annihilation rates for systems from benzene to small polar and nonpolar molecules, heralding a versatile tool for positronic chemistry and fundamental antimatter interactions.

Research from all publishers

High-precision hadronic interaction models have been refined by incorporating higher-twist corrections and colour-fluctuation effects into Monte Carlo generators. The resulting predictions for proton–proton total, elastic and diffractive cross sections agree closely with 13 TeV collider data and aid cosmic-ray air-shower simulations by better accounting for the energy dependence of hadronic processes.

Dedicated low-|t| measurements of the elastic differential cross section at 13 TeV have yielded a total proton–proton cross section of around 105 mb and a ρ-parameter near 0.10, determined via fits to the Coulomb–nuclear interference region. These results sharpen our knowledge of the forward scattering amplitude’s real-to-imaginary ratio and constrain models of proton structure.

A model-independent comparison of proton–antiproton and proton–proton elastic scattering data around the diffractive minimum has strengthened evidence for a crossing-odd three-gluon exchange (odderon). Discrepancies between pp̄ and pp differential cross sections at Tevatron and LHC energies reach a significance above three sigma, hinting at this elusive colour-odd contribution to strong interactions.

Particle Physics publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in particle physics across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Quark: Fundamental matter particle carrying colour charge, which combines into hadrons such as protons and neutrons.

Lepton: Fundamental matter particle not subject to the strong force; includes electrons and neutrinos.

Gluon: Force-carrier boson that mediates the strong interaction between quarks.

Higgs mechanism: Process by which elementary particles acquire mass through interaction with the Higgs field.

Elastic scattering: Two-body collision process in which the identities of the particles remain unchanged and no energy is lost to particle production.

Coulomb–nuclear interference: Region of very low momentum transfer where electromagnetic and strong amplitudes overlap, enabling extraction of the ρ-parameter.

Odderon: Hypothetical colourless, charge-odd three-gluon exchange contributing to differences between proton–proton and proton–antiproton scattering.

References

1. A Whirlwind Tour of Particle Physics.
2. A multi-cubic-kilometre neutrino telescope in the western Pacific Ocean. Nature Astronomy (2023).
3. Neural network variational Monte Carlo for positronic chemistry. Nature Communications (2024).
4. QGSJET-III model of high energy hadronic interactions: The formalism. Physical Review D (2024).
5. Measurement of the total cross section and ρ-parameter from elastic scattering in pp collisions at s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. European Physical Journal C (2023).
6. Odderon Exchange from Elastic Scattering Differences between pp and pp¯ Data at 1.96 TeV and from pp Forward Scattering Measurements. Physical Review Letters (2021).