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Particle physics and the fundamental forces
Four results in five weeks, none of them a device. In China the particle X(2370) looks more than ever like a glueball, matter made of pure strong force. Polarised X-rays from a magnetar suggest the vacuum splits light, as quantum electrodynamics said it would. An Indian study asks what dark matter does inside dead stars, and an Indian built beam catcher has reached an international accelerator in Germany.
UPSC has asked
- Prelims 2023: pulsars as neutron stars left by collapsed massive stars
- Prelims 2016: India's membership of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor
- Prelims 2013: the four known forces of nature and their properties
- Prelims 2013: the importance of discovering the Higgs boson
The forces and the theories that describe them
- Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the theory of the strong force.
- Gluons, unlike photons, attract one another, which is what makes a glueball possible.
- Quantum electrodynamics (QED), the theory of the electromagnetic force, treats the vacuum not as empty but as a sea of virtual particles, so a strong enough magnetic field makes it behave like a crystal that splits light by polarisation.
India at FAIR
- The Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR) is an international accelerator being built in Germany.
- A founding member since 2010, India splits the cost between its science and atomic energy departments.
- The Bose Institute is India's nodal body.
What has happened
10 Sep 2026
An Indian study proposed that ultra heavy dark matter captured inside a dead star could collapse into a tiny black hole that swallows it.
- It looks at millisecond pulsars and white dwarfs, where dark matter falling in outweighs what the black hole loses to Hawking radiation.
- Many such stars have lasted billions of years, which rules out dark matter that would have destroyed them sooner.
31 Aug 2026
Two satellites and a ground telescope measured polarised X-rays from a magnetar, reported in Nature as evidence of vacuum birefringence.
- The effect was predicted in the 1930s but needs a field about 88 trillion times Earth's, so magnetars are the only natural test beds.
10 Aug 2026
Data from the BESIII (Beijing Spectrometer III) experiment in China strengthened the case that X(2370) is mainly a glueball.
- If confirmed it would be the first form of matter made purely of force carrying particles.
The Hindu, 10 Aug 2026: What is a glueball? (opens in a new tab)
7 Aug 2026
The first of three Indian built beam catchers reached FAIR, designed by CSIR-CMERI (Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute) for the Super Fragment Separator, which produces radioactive beams.
- India is also supplying 524 power converters, cables and detectors for two FAIR experiments.