News
EPJ Plus Highlight - Speeding up radioactive decay in ultra-cold metallic environments
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- Published on 21 May 2026
A new framework aims to test whether embedding radioactive nuclei in ultra-cold metal matrices could accelerate their decay, and could offer a new route to managing nuclear waste
When cooled to ultra-cold temperatures and embedded in metallic surroundings, radioactive nuclei may decay at faster rates. So far, however, the mechanisms underlying this possibility have remained poorly understood.
Through new research published in EPJ Plus, a team from the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN) and the Tor Vergata University of Rome, in collaboration with the Institute for Nuclear Research of (NASU) in Kyiv, has developed a comprehensive new framework for assessing the effect, and how it can best be investigated in real experiments. Their results could lead to new answers in fundamental nuclear physics and may even pave the way for new methods for accelerating the decay of radioactive waste into less harmful materials.
EPJ Web of Conferences Highlight - XXXI International Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions “Quark Matter 2025”
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- Published on 20 May 2026
The Quark Matter 2025, held in Frankfurt from April 6–12, 2025, is the largest global conference in the field of high-energy heavy-ion physics. It brings together leading experimentalists and theorists to explore the properties of matter under extreme conditions, such as those that existed just after the Big Bang.
The 2025 edition attracted around 1000 participants from across the world, making it the largest meeting in the conference series to date. The scientific program featured a very large number of contributions, including hundreds of talks and poster presentations spanning topics such as quark–gluon plasma, particle correlations, jets, and new detector technologies.
Olle Björneholm joins the EPJ Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC)
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- Published on 20 May 2026
The Steering Committee of EPJ is delighted to welcome Olle Björneholm, as the new representative of the Swedish Physical Society.
Professor Olle Björneholm is professor in Molecular and Cluster Physics in the Chemical and Bio-molecular Physics research program within the Division for X-ray Photon Science at the Department of Physics and Astronomy (Uppsala University). His personal research interests are primarily concerned with phenomena and processes connected to the electronic and geometric structure of liquids and clusters/nanoparticles including X-ray-induced dynamics as described here. His main tools to study this are various synchrotron radiation-based spectroscopic techniques. He studies systems and processes that are relevant for issues like ultra-fast dynamics radiation damage nanoscience and environmental molecular science.
EPJ E Colloquium - Human lungs fluid mechanics: an overview of current modelling techniques
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- Published on 13 May 2026
Human breathing is governed by fluid mechanics across several regimes that span over a wide range of length and time scales: from turbulent airflow in the upper airways to slow interfacial motion in the smallest bronchioles and alveoli. At the same time, air motion is coupled to deformable tissue, mucus transport, surfactant dynamics, gas exchange, and, in disease, airway narrowing or liquid plugging. This makes the lung a demanding test case for modern multiphysics modelling.
EPJ ST Highlight - Improved technique could reveal beyond standard model particles in CERN detector
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- Published on 13 May 2026
A technique combining liquid thin films and machine vision could help researchers cut through the optical noise obscuring potential tracks of as-yet unobserved particles in CERN's MoEDAL detector
The Monopole and Exotics Detector at the LHC (MoEDAL) is an experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is aiming to observe a variety of particles not described by the Standard Model. So far, however, the scope of its measurement abilities has been held back by the techniques used to measure the tracks left behind by energetic particles.
In a new study published in EPJ Special Topics (EPJ ST), Matti Kalliokoski at the University of Helsinki, Finland, presents a new approach to processing the foil used in this measurement. His method could make it far easier for researchers to detect the subtle tracks left behind by as-yet unobserved particles – potentially bringing their long-awaited measurement a step closer to reality.
EPJ E Highlight - EPJ E: Soft Matter and Biological Physics – the past and the future
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- Published on 08 May 2026
A new editorial in EPJ E reflects on the journal’s role in uniting diverse soft-matter communities, and anticipates the challenges of maintaining interdisciplinary dialogue as the field expands.
Soft matter encompasses a diverse array of structures, including liquid crystals, polymers and biopolymers, and even living cells and tissues. While they are often complex, all of these materials display extremely strong responses to weak perturbations, including mechanical, chemical, and electrical influences. Increasingly, these properties are being explored across a vast array of applications, driving deeper questions about how the fascinating behaviour of soft materials is linked to their constituent molecular parts.
First founded in 2000, EPJ E: Soft Matter and Biological Physics has long been a cornerstone of soft matter research. In one of the first papers of the EPJ E 25th Anniversary Collection: Past Insights, Present Voices, Future Horizons, Jean‑François Joanny at Collège de France, together with Günter Reiter at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, reflect on its prolific past while anticipating the challenges and opportunities it will likely face in the future.
EPJ Plus Highlight - Morphology shapes the performance of perovskite X-ray detectors
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- Published on 08 May 2026
Researchers have identified a key trade-off between the thickness and the quality of the film of hybrid perovskite devices and their performance in flexible X-ray detectors
Thin films of hybrid perovskites have emerged as promising candidates for optoelectronic devices, including radiation detectors, but much remains to be learned about how their performance is linked to their morphology.
Through new analysis published in EPJ Plus, Sara Cepić and colleagues at the University of Bologna, Italy, have gained detailed insights into the link between film morphology and the performance of a perovskite-based X-ray detector. Their results could help researchers in future studies to optimise the performance of radiation detectors.
EPJ H Highlight - From Hole Theory to Quantum Field Theory
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- Published on 08 May 2026
New analysis reconstructs a pivotal transition in physicists' understanding of fermionic quantum fields, tracing how Ettore Majorana's largely overlooked 1937 work helped shape the modern framework of Quantum Field Theory
Since its earliest origins in the 1920s, Quantum Field Theory (QFT) has come to underpin our understanding of the universe's most fundamental particles and forces. Among the most important stages in its development was a period from 1933 to 1937, when relativistic fermions were widely studied in the context of Dirac's Hole theory – which suggested that a vacuum exists as a 'sea' of negative energy states, each fully occupied by an electron. As this framework was gradually superseded, QFT began its gradual and consistent construction.
Through new analysis published in EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics, Francesco Vissani at The National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), Italy, reconstructs the crucial stages of this transition, highlighting the seminal role played by Italian theorist Ettore Majorana.
EPJ TI Highlight - Advanced software sharpens scintillation images of low-energy gamma rays
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- Published on 23 April 2026
By combining a monolithic scintillation detector with analytical and machine learning methods, researchers have pushed its resolution beyond the limits of its hardware when measuring low-energy gamma rays.
Scintillation detectors are vital tools in fields ranging from medical imaging to fundamental physics. When excited by ionizing radiation, they emit pulses of light which can be converted into electrical signals, allowing researchers to precisely determine the energy and intensity of incoming radiation. So far, however, most detector designs have been limited to segmented crystals, which are both complex to manufacture and leave dead spaces between segments that limit their efficiency. While the problem is now being addressed in measurements of higher-energy radiation, low-energy detectors have fallen behind.
In a new study published in EPJ Techniques and Instrumentation, researchers have demonstrated how low-energy gamma rays can be precisely measured using scintillation detectors made from continuous, monolithic crystals. Carried out by Gabriel Turturica, Bogdan Temelie, and Violeta Iancu at the Extreme Light Infrastructure – Nuclear Physics (ELI-NP), Horia Hulubei National Institute for R&D in Physics and Nuclear Engineering, the approach could unlock new capabilities for radiation detection across a diverse array of fields.
EPJ H Highlight - Suraj N. Gupta: Retracing the contributions of a quantum gravity pioneer
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- Published on 23 April 2026
A new historical overview retraces the early work of Suraj N. Gupta, whose pioneering efforts explored how Einstein’s description of gravity could be brought into the framework of quantum mechanics.
Suraj Narayan Gupta (1924–2021) was a theoretical physicist born in India, who served at Wayne State University in Detroit from 1956. While he is best known for his contributions to quantum electrodynamics, he was also among the first to describe gravity using the language of quantum mechanics. Yet despite his pioneering role in one of the most vibrant fields of theoretical physics, his work in this area has largely been forgotten.
Through a new study published in EPJ H: Historical Perspectives on Contemporary Physics, Savan Hirpara at the University of Helsinki presents a historical overview of Gupta’s research, shedding new light on his contributions to the early development of quantum gravity.
