Scientists have detected signals from the smallest scale of nature ever explored, opening a new window into a mysterious world around 100 billion times smaller than an atom, which physicists have nicknamed the ‘zeptoverse’. The finding could help researchers investigate unknown particles and forces that may hold clues to some of the universe’s biggest mysteries, including dark matter.According to a report by BBC News, the research was led by scientists based at the University of Cambridge using data from the Large Hadron Collider’s LHCb experiment at CERN, the European particle physics laboratory on the Swiss-French border.The research was conducted using the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a massive particle accelerator operated by CERN on the Swiss-French border. The machine smashes particles together at extremely high speeds, allowing scientists to study the smaller particles produced in these collisions.The researchers detected evidence of an extremely rare process involving a subatomic particle containing a beauty quark, which breaks down into two particles called muons. Beauty quarks exist for an extremely short period before decaying into other particles, making their behaviour difficult to study.The experiment allowed scientists to investigate particle interactions at a scale of around one zeptometre, or one-sextillionth of a metre.This is the scale that researchers have nicknamed the ‘zeptoverse’. The finding marks an important step in exploring how matter behaves at distances far smaller than those previously accessible to experimental studies.Dr Harry Cliff, a physicist at the University of Cambridge who led the analysis of the data, described the finding as a significant step towards exploring the mysterious scale, saying, “We’re knocking on the door of this zeptoverse.”He said the experiment had given researchers an opportunity to study the behaviour of possible new particles.“And what we want to do now is go in and explore and find what new particles are waiting there. And to do that, what we need is more data,” Cliff told BBC News.How the discovery could help unlock the mystery of dark matterDark matter is one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in modern physics. It is an invisible form of matter that does not emit, absorb or reflect light, making it impossible to observe directly through conventional telescopes. Scientists infer its existence from its gravitational effects on visible matter, including the movement of stars and galaxies. Despite its significant presence in the universe, researchers have not yet identified what it is made of.The latest research could offer another way to investigate this mystery. Scientists believe that undiscovered particles, which cannot always be produced or detected directly, could influence the behaviour of known subatomic particles. In particular, hypothetical particles could affect the rare decay of beauty mesons by contributing to the quantum processes involved in their breakdown.By studying these extremely rare interactions, researchers can look for deviations from the predictions of the Standard Model, the established theory of particle physics.Any unexplained differences could point towards new particles or forces that are not yet part of our understanding of the universe. Some theoretical models suggest that such particles could also be connected to dark matter.
