The LEGEND 200 experiment is set to search for extremely rare neutrinoless double beta decay. Finding it could answer a central physics question: is the neutrino its own antiparticle? To detect the decay, scientists use highly sensitive Germanium…
There are many questions surrounding the elementary particle neutrino, in particular regarding its mass. Physicists are also interested in whether besides the “classic” neutrinos there are variants such as the so-called sterile neutrinos. The KATRIN…
Despite the corona pandemic, the production of next-generation ATLAS muon chambers at the Max Planck Institute for Physics (MPP) is proceeding as planned. Due to the current contact restrictions, the technicians are only permitted to work in shifts…
Theoretical particle physicists sometimes compare Feynman integrals to “wild beasts”. Three physicists have now succeeded in partially taming these wild beasts with the help of mathematics. Their scientific achievement should make theoretical…
The Belle II detector records about 5,000 collision events per second. However, only a fraction of these are of interest for physical questions. In order to distinguish the real signals from unusable data, the experiment uses “triggers”. Since the…
The Max Planck Institute for Physics, together with the Hanrieder Foundation for Excellence, is initiating a new funding program. The Hanrieder Research Fellowship aims to support junior physicists from countries in Latin America in a targeted way.…
Until now, all experiments have been unable to detect the mysterious dark matter. All? Not quite. The DAMA experiment has been providing reliable signals for more than 20 years. The problem: To speak of a discovery in science, signals of dark matter…
First hand research: In February and March, three particle physics courses will be held for high-school students. On these days, participants will learn about research methods, identify elementary particles in particle collisions, and “visit”…
The search for neutrinoless double-beta decay continues with new LEGEND experiment
The GERDA experiment designed to prove the existence of neutrinoless double beta decay is coming to an end. The research collaboration has now evaluated the full data set produced by the experiment and published it in Physical Review Letters. Even…
Whether axions exist is still up for debate. If they do exist, two open questions in particle physics could be resolved: The puzzle of what dark matter is made of – and the question of why the strong interaction, one of the four known forces in the…
