April 25, 2019
Using the XENON1T experiment, a giant detector deep under an Italian mountainside, UChicago scientists documented the decay of atoms of xenon-124, the rarest process ever observed in the universe. The results from the XENON1T experiment, co-authored by University of Chicago scientists and published April 25 in the journal Nature, document the longest half-life in the universe, and may be able to help scientists hunt for another mysterious process that is one of particle physics' great mysteries.