News: Research

2026

David Awschalom receives the 2026 Falling Walls Breakthrough Award in Physical Sciences Category

September 21, 2026


Free UChicago public lectures celebrate 50 years of discovery with talks on the origins of the universe, dark matter, gravitational waves, and particle physics

September 16, 2026

Half a century ago, scientists at the University of Chicago's Enrico Fermi Institute helped invent a new way to study the universe: by treating the Big Bang itself as a laboratory to explore nature at energy scales unreachable on earth. This fall, nine of the researchers who carry that legacy forward will share what those fifty years have uncovered — from the invisible matter holding galaxies together to the gravitational ripples of colliding black holes.

The series of free public talks by UChicago scientists, “The Compton Lectures: 50 Years of Discovery,” run every Saturday from Oct. 3 through Dec. 5 at 11 a.m. in the Kersten Physics Teaching Center.


Dark matter experiment catches quietest neutrinos ever measured

September 16, 2026

In its hunt for dark matter, the XENONnT experiment has detected the rare, feeble glow of neutrinos smacking into electrons.


Helium lifts new quantum computing concept

September 9, 2026

JCovey

Breakthrough from a team led by Jacob Covey, associate professor in the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Department of Physics, turns helium-3’s low mass into a quantum resource.


Luca Delacrétaz featured in Quanta Magazine

September 2, 2026

Luca Delacrétaz


Argonne marks 80 years of scientific discovery

July 28, 2026


Fermilab marks 70 years of neutrino science and leads next-generation experiment

July 23, 2026


UChicago receives W. M. Keck Research Program grant to study nonreciprocal interactions

July 15, 2026


Dark matter, explained

April 9, 2026

Dark matter pie chart


Lecture series to explore how particles from space can help us understand our world

March 10, 2026

Compton Series 2026


UChicago scientists find better way to make infrared light—using quantum dots

February 26, 2026


Zoe Yan awarded 2026 Sloan Foundation Fellowship

February 20, 2026

Zoe Yan


2025

Tom Witten receives the European Physical Society Statistical and Nonlinear Physics Prize

November 20, 2025


Abigail Vieregg receives 2025 Cottrell SEED Award

August 25, 2025

Abigail Vieregg


Dark matter hunters search for hidden-sector particles using specialized “camera” deep beneath the French Alps

August 20, 2025