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Antimatter ‘tag’ used to detect elusive particle decay

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A long-underexplored test of particle-physics theory has been revived. This method uses quantum entanglement to infer the presence of undetectable particles.

By

  1. Matt Kenzie

    1. Matt Kenzie is in the Department of Physics, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 0US, UK.

The protons and neutrons that make up the majority of everyday matter consist of fundamental particles called up quarks and down quarks. Less common is the unstable strange quark, which can turn into an up quark. This transformation, which serves as a key test of conventional physics theory, can be measured in the decay of particles called lambda hyperons. However, over the past 35 years, this decay has received little experimental attention because some of its characteristics could not be measured. Now, in a paper in Nature, the BESIII Collaboration1 reports an experiment that ‘tagged’ the lambda hyperon decay through quantum entanglement with the particle’s antimatter partner. The authors find that a key decay parameter is consistent with conventional theory, in conflict with previous measurements.

Nature 657, 42-44 (2026)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-026-02123-1

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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