I read their preprint[1] and they did a thorough job. They investigated a number of the things I'd suspect if I were looking for mis-reconstructed events or weird backgrounds.
So it's certainly interesting!
That said, particle physics history is full of 3 sigma particle "discoveries" that disappeared with more data. They're collecting more, so hopefully we'll learn more in a few more years.
> it’s far too early to claim a discovery, physicists warn...“How do you even make sense of one event?” muses Tom Shutt, a particle astrophysicist at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and co-founder of the LZ project. “We just decided we should publish and think really, really, really hard about what that event could be.”
Very hard to manage jumping the gun by reporters. Sounds like they saw some new data. No idea what it is.
Looking forward to the follow up.
pizzathyme
> The detector lurks 1480 meters deep in the Sanford Underground Research Facility, in a former gold mine in South Dakota.
Glad to see such things getting re-purposed instead of just sealed off and abandoned.
petcat
> If the new result is real, more signals should emerge soon. LZ researchers have already collected three times as much data as they used in the paper.
It sounds like this implies they've seen 3x more events but it seems like they would have said that if it were the case. Have they just gathered more data about the single event or is this 4 separate events they're talking about?
parineum
Why couldn't it be just a weirdly energetic neutrino originating from the neighborhood of some black hole?
scotty79
They detected a single weird event, not necessarily a particle.
naasking
I think it's cool that there's still unconfirmed hypothesizes, and still unexplained phenomena in the science that's investigating these hypothesizes.
I hope this turns into a real discovery about something; but even if it's an equipment malfunction, hopefully it's a lesson that can be turned into improving the detector.
gwbas1c
So you have 7 tons of Xenon as the detector, hoping that some dark matter will bump into a nucleus. How do you exclude other effects?
lordnacho
I always wondered if it would happen in my lifetime. Hope it turns out to be something interesting (AKA) dark matter.
comments (9)
So it's certainly interesting!
That said, particle physics history is full of 3 sigma particle "discoveries" that disappeared with more data. They're collecting more, so hopefully we'll learn more in a few more years.
[1] https://lz.lbl.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2026/08/LZ_Pre...
SaberTail
Very hard to manage jumping the gun by reporters. Sounds like they saw some new data. No idea what it is.
Looking forward to the follow up.
pizzathyme
Glad to see such things getting re-purposed instead of just sealed off and abandoned.
petcat
It sounds like this implies they've seen 3x more events but it seems like they would have said that if it were the case. Have they just gathered more data about the single event or is this 4 separate events they're talking about?
parineum
scotty79
naasking
I hope this turns into a real discovery about something; but even if it's an equipment malfunction, hopefully it's a lesson that can be turned into improving the detector.
gwbas1c
lordnacho
rajaravivarma_r