Atomic Anomaly Confirmed! Evidence for a “dark force”?

From Sabine Hossenfelder.

Check out my quantum mechanics course on Brilliant! First 30 days are free and 20% off the annual premium subscription when you use our link ➜ https://brilliant.org/sabine.

In 2020, a group of MIT researchers detected an anomaly in the nuclei of ytterbium atoms. They said that the nuclei’s strange behavior might be indicative of a “dark force” caused by a currently-undiscovered mystery particle that might make up dark matter. In 2020, the anomaly only had a significance of 3 sigma. But now, another group has confirmed it at a whopping 23 sigma! What does that mean for physics? Let’s find out.

Paper: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.063002

🤓 Check out my new quiz app ➜ http://quizwithit.com/
💌 Support me on Donorbox ➜ https://donorbox.org/swtg
📝 Transcripts and written news on Substack ➜ https://sciencewtg.substack.com/
👉 Transcript with links to references on Patreon ➜ https://www.patreon.com/Sabine
📩 Free weekly science newsletter ➜ https://sabinehossenfelder.com/newsletter/
👂 Audio only podcast ➜ https://open.spotify.com/show/0MkNfXlKnMPEUMEeKQYmYC
🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1yNl2E66ZzKApQdRuTQ4tw/join
🖼️ On instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/sciencewtg/

#science #sciencenews #physics #darkmatter