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The Central Neutron Detector installed in Experimental Hall B. Silvia Niccolai and her team at the Laboratory of the Physics of the two Infinities Irène Joliot-Curie (IJCLab), a joint research unit of CNRS in Orsay, France, Paris-Saclay University, and Paris-City University, began constructing the detector in 2011 with funding from the French National Institute of Nuclear and Particle Physics. Credit: Silvia Niccolai ================================================================================= Recent advancements at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have enabled physicists to explore the internal structure of neutrons in unprecedented detail. Using a new detector, researchers have achieved a deeper understanding of how quarks and gluons...

The cosmic microwave background sky, here mapped by NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, has a polarization, represented by white bars. Future experiments might measure the polarization with enough sensitivity to prove the existence of gravitons, the quanta of gravity. Can a quantum of gravity ever be detected? Two physicists suggest that it can — using the entire Universe as a detector. Researchers think that the gravitational force is transmitted by an elementary particle called the graviton, just as the electromagnetic force is carried by photons. But most of them despair about ever recording individual gravitons. That is because gravity is...