Topological materials could usher in a new age of electronics, but scientists are still discovering surprising aspects of their quantum nature.

A new theory says dark matter acts remarkably similar to subatomic particles known to science since the 1930s. We owe a lot to dark matter – it is the thing keeping galaxies, stars, our solar system, ...

Columnist Natalie Wolchover checks in with particle physicists more than a decade after the field entered a profound crisis.

UC Santa Cruz physicist Stefano Profumo has put forward two imaginative but scientifically grounded theories that may help solve one of the biggest mysteries in physics: the origin of dark matter. In ...

The idea that empty space is truly empty has been quietly dying for decades, but new measurements of particle spin are now forcing the issue. By tracking how tiny fragments of matter emerge with ...

An obscure theory of elementary particles proved to be key to China’s re-emergence as a scientific nation after the Cultural Revolution had stalled its development. Robert P Crease finds out more from ...

A new unified theory connects two fundamental domains of modern quantum physics: It joins two opposite views of how a single exotic particle behaves in a many-body system, namely as a mobile or static ...

Everything we see around us, from the ground beneath our feet to the most remote galaxies, is made of matter. For scientists, that has long posed a problem: According to physicists’ best current ...

Ah, dark matter. Creator of the universe, sculptor of galaxies, great brewer of coffee (probably). There seems to be nothing it can’t do, or isn’t responsible for, but there’s just one problem: Where ...

Physicists don’t know where most of the universe’s apparent mass has gone, and attempts to find it have so far failed. But a proposed particle born out of the universe’s chaotic first moments may ...