The evidence comes from high-energy particle collisions at RHIC, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility for nuclear physics research that operated at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory from 2000 to early 2026. According to the new study, published in Science, baryon number may be associated with a Y-shaped “junction” of gluons connecting the proton’s three main quarks. If confirmed, that would challenge the long-standing assumption that baryon number belongs exclusively to those quarks.

“Traditionally, scientists have assumed that each of the three main ‘valence’ quarks inside a proton or neutron carries one-third of the baryon number,” said Zhangbu Xu, a professor at Kent State University with a joint appointment at Brookhaven Lab.

A Decades-Old Idea About Gluons

Physicists first proposed the baryon junction, also called a gluon junction, in the 1970s as a way to describe how gluons connect the valence quarks inside a proton. In 1996, four years before RHIC began operating, Dmitri Kharzeev, a theoretical physicist at Stony Brook University and Brookhaven Lab, proposed that this junction might do something even more fundamental. Rather than the valence quarks carrying baryon number, the junction itself could be responsible.

The STAR collaboration has now developed a way to test that possibility using several types of collisions produced at RHIC.

“Using data collected from different types of particle collisions at RHIC, our results suggest that the baryon number is not simply carried by individual quarks,” Xu added. “Our findings strongly support the idea that baryon number is more favorably carried and transported by gluons, the particles that hold quarks together, when arranged in this special configuration.”

Why Baryon Number Matters

Determining what actually carries baryon number matters far beyond the internal structure of a proton. In RHIC collisions, conservation of baryon number means that the total number of baryons, three-quark particles such as protons and neutrons, must remain unchanged before and after the collision. The same conservation principle also applies on the scale of the universe.

“Since the Big Bang, the number of protons and neutrons all together never changes as a function of time,” said Nicole Lewis, a STAR physicist at Rice University who started this project as a postdoc at Brookhaven Lab in 2020. “The reasons for this conservation are not well understood. It’s one of the mysteries of the universe, related to why we have more matter than antimatter,” she said.

Baryon number conservation also has a much more tangible consequence. It helps explain the extraordinary stability of protons, which form a central part of atomic nuclei and do not appear to decay under ordinary circumstances.

“It’s believed that the lifetime of a proton is longer than the lifespan of the universe,” Lewis said. “This allows atomic nuclei to form and be stable — which means matter, as we interact with it in the universe, can exist.”

A More Complicated Proton

The possibility that gluons carry baryon number would overturn the standard simplified description found in many textbooks. In that picture, a proton has a baryon number of plus one, divided equally among its three main valence quarks. Each quark therefore carries plus one third of the baryon number, much as the proton’s electric charge is distributed among its three valence quarks.

But real protons are much more complicated than that simplified model suggests.

“In the naïve quark model, there are three quarks inside a proton, but nothing else,” said Tommy Tsang, formerly a postdoc at Kent State University, now at DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory. “But if we look at details inside, there are not only three quarks but also a lot of gluons interacting, connecting between those quarks, and there are also quarks and antiquarks that pop up from the vacuum, so it’s actually a really complex object.”

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the theory used to describe these interactions, has been highly successful in explaining the strong force that acts among quarks and gluons. Even so, models inspired by QCD often need additional assumptions to reproduce some of the particle patterns observed when RHIC smashes nuclei together at nearly the speed of light.

An Unexpected Excess of Baryons

One observation in particular caught the STAR team’s attention. The detector repeatedly records more baryons than antibaryons emerging sideways from the collisions, perpendicular to the direction of the incoming beams.

“In the STAR detector, we consistently see an excess of baryons coming out of the collisions perpendicular to the direction of the colliding beams,” Tsang said. “The fact that we end up with more baryons than antibaryons — or more matter than antimatter — is not surprising since our collisions start with matter,” he said.

These extremely energetic collisions convert tremendous amounts of energy into thousands of newly created particles. What puzzled the researchers was not simply that more baryons than antibaryons were produced. It was where the excess baryons appeared.

If valence quarks alone carried the baryon number, explaining the excess away from the beamline would require all three valence quarks from one colliding proton to stop near the center of the detector. They would then have to undergo a conversion from matter into energy and back into matter, producing new baryons that move outward perpendicular to the beam.

The STAR researchers suspected there might be another explanation.

Electric Charge Provides a Test

The team found a way to investigate the mystery by taking advantage of another property of valence quarks: electric charge. Scientists compared the net baryon number measured in different RHIC nuclear collisions with the way electric charge was redistributed in those same events.

“Measuring the electric charge coming out perpendicular to the collision gives you a definitive way of measuring how many quarks are stopped and transformed into new particles,” said Zebo Tang, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China who led a group of students performing data analyses and model simulations.

The comparison revealed a striking mismatch. Researchers observed roughly twice as many baryons as should have been produced based on the electric charge associated with stopped quarks.

According to models based on QCD, that means too few quarks were being stopped to account for all the baryons appearing in the detector.

That left an important question: What was carrying the extra baryon number?

The STAR physicists argue that gluons offer a possible answer, specifically the three-pronged gluon junction that connects the proton’s valence quarks.

How the Gluon Junction Could Carry Baryon Number

The proposed mechanism depends on what happens when protons inside colliding nuclei reach enormous energies. According to the STAR team, the “gluon junction” or “baryon junction” that links the quarks may be much easier to stop in a collision than the three quarks themselves.

If the junction is stopped, its energy can be converted into newly produced baryons that travel outward in directions perpendicular to the beams. Meanwhile, the valence quarks that were previously connected by the junction can continue moving forward along the beampipe.

Understanding why requires looking at the changing internal structure of a proton as its energy increases.

“The baryon junction is always there even as protons are accelerated to higher and higher energy,” Prithwish Tribedy, a STAR physicist at Brookhaven Lab. “But at high energy, gluons within the proton split and multiply.”

As the number of gluons increases, the proton’s momentum becomes spread among more of them. Each individual gluon, including those forming the junction, therefore carries a smaller portion of the proton’s total momentum. The valence quarks, however, continue to carry much of the proton’s forward motion.

As a result, when the collision occurs, the comparatively slower three-pronged gluon junction should be easier to stop and convert into new particles than the rapidly moving quarks.

Stopping one connected structure is also simpler than stopping three separate quarks, making such an interaction more likely, according to Tribedy.

“In the collision, the baryon junction gets held behind, and the quarks continue on,” he noted.

Building New Particles After the Collision

Quarks and gluons cannot remain isolated, so after the collision they quickly combine with other particles.

In a simplified example, a quark continuing down the beampipe could join with an antiquark and form a two-quark particle called a meson. At the same time, the three-pronged gluon junction could behave somewhat like a Y-shaped magnet, drawing in three newly created quarks from the vacuum and producing a new baryon.

Actual RHIC collisions are considerably more violent and complex.

“Even though we start with nuclei that contain roughly 100 protons and 100 neutrons, these collisions create thousands of new particles; 99% of the energy is transformed into new particles,” said Rongrong Ma, a Brookhaven Lab physicist.

The STAR team found that collisions producing larger numbers of particles also showed a greater excess of “midrapidity” baryons compared with predictions based on the simpler picture in which quarks alone carry baryon number.

The fact that so many of these baryons emerge perpendicular to the beamline provides strong evidence, according to the researchers, that the baryon junction exists and plays an important role in transporting baryon number.

Rethinking a Fundamental Property of Matter

The results suggest that one of the proton’s defining quantum properties may not reside solely in its three valence quarks. Instead, the gluon structure connecting those quarks could be central to how baryon number is carried through energetic collisions.

“Our research challenges the long-held idea that baryon number is simply divided among and carried by the three quarks,” said Ma. “This new understanding reshapes how we think about the structure of matter and deepens our knowledge of the most fundamental element that is responsible for the universe in its current form.”

The research was supported by the DOE Office of Science, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and numerous international agencies and organizations listed in the scientific paper. Researchers also used the Open Science Grid, which is supported directly by NSF, along with computing resources at Brookhaven Lab’s Scientific Data and Computing Facilities and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), another DOE Office of Science user facility located at DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Led by researchers at Flinders University and the University of Canberra, the study found that aging is associated with a “safety-first” walking strategy. This approach emphasizes stability instead of speed and energy efficiency, helping explain why older adults may fatigue more quickly and also face a greater risk of falling.

Researchers analyzed movement data from 107 healthy adults between the ages of 26 and 86. They found small but meaningful age-related differences in how the ankle and nearby muscles manage each step.

How the Ankle Changes With Age

Lead author and sport and exercise technology expert Dr. Cody Lindsay says the ankle is essential for maintaining balance while also helping propel the body forward.

“As we get older, the body starts to favor stability over efficiency,” says Dr. Lindsay, from the Flinders Caring Futures Institute.

“That helps keep us upright, but it also makes walking more of an effort.”

The researchers found that older adults are more likely to activate opposing muscles around the ankle at the same time. This pattern is known as co-contraction. It makes the ankle joint stiffer and can improve stability when the foot contacts the ground.

However, Dr. Lindsay says this comes at a cost.

“Stiffening the joint makes walking safer, but it also means the muscles are working harder without generating as much forward movement,” he says.

Older participants also generated less push-off power with each step. As a result, their strides were shorter, and their walking speeds were slower.

A Safety First Strategy for Walking

Co-author Associate Professor Maarten Immink says the findings point to a wider change in the way the body manages movement as people grow older.

“The nervous system adopts a safety-first approach, compensating for age-related changes by favoring stability over performance,” says Associate Professor Immink, Lead of the Active Lives Research Program within the Caring Futures Institute at Flinders University.

“These changes can also increase fatigue and make walking longer distances more challenging, while reducing the ability to recover from trips or slips — a key factor in falls among older adults.”

“Even gradual changes can affect confidence and independence, and people may notice they tire more quickly or feel less steady, especially on uneven ground.”

Exercise May Help Preserve Mobility

The findings also suggest possible ways to help people maintain mobility as they age.

Rather than focusing only on building strength, the researchers say exercise programs should also emphasize balance and coordination while paying attention to how different muscles work together during each step.

“For older Australians, simple actions can make a difference, including regular physical activity, balance exercises such as tai chi, lower-leg strengthening and activities that challenge coordination,” says Dr. Lindsay, from Flinders’ College of Health and Enablement.

“Staying active is one of the most important things people can do, and small, consistent exercises can help you stay confident, mobile and independent for longer.”

The researchers hope these findings can contribute to improved prevention and rehabilitation strategies designed to reduce falls and support healthy aging.

The findings may be particularly important for children and teenagers. Because their bodies are still developing, younger generations are expected to experience the greatest lifetime exposure to elevated atmospheric CO₂.

Decades of Blood Data Reveal a Shift

In a study published in Air Quality, Atmosphere and Health, scientists from The Kids Research Institute Australia, Curtin University and The Australian National University (ANU) examined more than 20 years of U.S. population health data. They found persistent changes in several measures of blood chemistry that closely followed the upward trend in atmospheric CO₂.

The researchers used information from the U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), analyzing blood test results from roughly 7,000 people at two-year intervals between 1999 and 2020.

Since 1999, average serum bicarbonate levels have increased by about 7 percent. Bicarbonate is a blood marker closely associated with carbon dioxide in the body. During the same period, average levels of calcium and phosphorus decreased.

Those biological trends occurred as atmospheric CO₂ climbed from about 369 parts per million (ppm) in 2000 to more than 420 ppm today.

Study author Associate Professor Alexander Larcombe said the results indicate that the body may already be adjusting to changes in the composition of the atmosphere.

“What we’re seeing is a gradual shift in blood chemistry that mirrors the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, which is driving climate change,” A/Prof Larcombe said.

How the Body Responds to More CO₂

Bicarbonate is essential for regulating the body’s acid-base balance. As CO₂ increases, the body can retain additional bicarbonate to help keep blood pH stable. Although this response helps preserve that balance, maintaining it over long periods could have physiological effects.

“If current trends continue, modeling indicates average bicarbonate levels could approach the upper limit of today’s accepted healthy range within 50 years,” A/Prof Larcombe said

“Calcium and phosphorus levels could also reach the lower end of their healthy ranges later this century.”

Humans evolved when atmospheric CO₂ concentrations were approximately 280 to 300 ppm. During the past decade, atmospheric levels have risen by an average of about 2.6 ppm each year, while 2024 alone saw an increase of 3.5 ppm.

Fellow Author Dr Phil Bierwirth, a retired environmental geoscientist affiliated with the ANU Emeritus Faculty, emphasized that the study does not establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship. However, he said the consistency of the changes across a large population warrants attention.

“I actually think that what we are seeing is because our bodies are not adapting,” Dr Bierwirth said.

“It appears we are adapted to a range of CO₂ in the air that may now have been surpassed.

“The normal range maintains a delicate balance between how much CO₂ is in the air, our blood pH, our breathing rate and bicarbonate levels in the blood.

“As CO₂ in the air is now higher than humans have ever experienced, it appears to be building up in our bodies. Maybe we can never adapt such that it is vitally important to limit atmospheric levels of CO₂.”

A Potential New Dimension of Climate Risk

The researchers say the results suggest that rising atmospheric CO₂ could represent a form of climate-related risk that is different from more familiar threats such as heatwaves, extreme weather and sea-level rise.

According to A/Prof Larcombe, increasing CO₂ may need to be considered not only as an environmental concern, but also as a long-term public health factor that should be monitored.

“We’re not saying people are suddenly going to become unwell when we cross a certain threshold,” he said.

“But this suggests there may be gradual physiological changes occurring at a population level, and that’s something we should be monitoring as part of future climate change policy.”

The researchers recommend monitoring the composition of the atmosphere together with biological markers across populations. Tracking both alongside established climate indicators could help scientists determine how slow environmental changes affect human biology over periods of decades.

CO₂ Reduction Could Have Health Implications

Cutting CO₂ emissions remains essential for limiting global warming. The findings also raise the possibility that lowering emissions could have an additional role in protecting long-term human health.

The researchers argue that potential physiological effects from rising CO₂ should therefore be considered in future discussions about climate policy, alongside its established environmental consequences.

Associate Professor Larcombe is part of the Wal-yan Respiratory Research Centre, a partnership between The Kids Research Institute Australia, Perth Children’s Hospital and Perth Children’s Hospital Foundation.

Two studies led by Ludwig Princeton’s Jenna AbuSalim and Director Joshua Rabinowitz offer new insight into that process. One appears in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, while the other was published in Nature Metabolism in June. The first study found that plant fiber and certain plant proteins can change microbial metabolism in ways that increase beneficial metabolites while reducing harmful ones. The second showed that several biologically important metabolites usually credited to gut microbes can also be produced in substantial amounts by mammalian metabolism.

“There’s growing interest across medical disciplines in manipulating the human microbiome or using its metabolic products themselves for therapy,” said Rabinowitz. “Diet holds great promise for controlling the microbiome and its outputs. But to devise effective therapeutic interventions, we need to understand what aspects of the diet control which microbial outputs.”

How Plant Foods Shift Gut Metabolites

In the PNAS study, Rabinowitz, AbuSalim and their colleagues examined how plant based foods influence phenol metabolites. Gut bacteria create these compounds when they digest the amino acids tyrosine and phenylalanine, but the resulting metabolites can have very different effects on health.

Phenylpropionate and hippuric acid are produced when bacteria process phenylalanine, and they are associated with gut health and healthy body weight. By contrast, p-cresol sulfate and phenol sulfate come from tyrosine and have been linked to worse outcomes in cancer patients as well as systemic toxicity in people with kidney disease.

“Our studies showed that both the fiber and indigestible proteins from plants — which we call ‘proteins imitating fiber,’ or Prif — shift the balance of phenol metabolites from the harmful kind made from tyrosine to the healthful variety derived from phenylalanine,” said AbuSalim.

Fiber has long been recognized as an important part of a healthy diet, but indigestible plant proteins have received far less attention. AbuSalim, Rabinowitz and their colleagues found that these proteins are processed by gut microbes and can alter both the makeup of the microbiome and the host’s metabolism. Working together with indigestible plant fiber, they can also change the metabolic activity of gut bacteria in ways that favor the production of beneficial phenols.

When Gut Bacteria Turn to the Gut Lining

To trace where these compounds came from, the researchers labeled proteins with stable (non-radioactive) isotopes and followed their digestion in the mouse gut. They found that the “bad” phenols were produced when bacteria consumed proteins from the host, including proteins found in the mucus lining of the gut. The good phenols, in contrast, came almost entirely from indigestible proteins in the diet (Prif).

Fiber reduced the bacterial breakdown of the gut’s mucus lining, which in turn lowered production of the harmful phenols. Prif increased the amount of dietary protein that reached gut microbes, giving them more material to produce the beneficial phenols.

“We think Prifs represent an emerging class of dietary nutrients that shape the composition of the gut microbiome and could have a far-reaching influence on metabolic health,” said AbuSalim.

“Food packaging may eventually list Prif right below fiber,” said Rabinowitz.

Rethinking Where Gut Metabolites Come From

The Nature Metabolism study focused on the origins of phenol metabolites as well as indole metabolites, which are produced from the amino acid tryptophan. Like phenols, indoles are being studied for their possible therapeutic value.

Indole metabolites have been connected to a wide range of diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer. In cancer research, they have been found to affect processes that include cancer metastasis and anti-tumor immune responses.

Scientists had generally assumed that phenols and indoles were produced only by gut bacteria. AbuSalim, Rabinowitz and their colleagues decided to test that assumption. Researchers have been especially interested in dietary and probiotic approaches that might increase beneficial indole metabolites. But those strategies may need to be reconsidered if mammalian metabolism, rather than microbes, is responsible for much of what circulates in the body.

Using isotope tracing in mice, rats and human cells, the researchers found that mammalian metabolism can produce many indole and phenol metabolites on its own. These included important compounds such as indole-3-lactate and indole-3-acetate.

In mice, circulating levels of these metabolites remained high even after antibiotic treatment disrupted the microbiome. A similar pattern appeared in samples from patients taking antibiotics, including cancer patients. At the same time, metabolites made exclusively by microbes, including indole-3-propionate and p-cresol sulfate, declined after antibiotic treatment.

New Clues for Diet and Microbiome Therapies

Together, the two studies provide a clearer picture of where phenol and indole metabolites come from and how they are produced. The findings could influence the development of therapies designed to raise or lower specific metabolites.

They also add important detail to scientists’ understanding of how diet interacts with the microbiome. Knowing which foods influence particular microbial products could eventually help researchers design more precise dietary, probiotic, or metabolic interventions.

“Beyond that,” said Rabinowitz, “a clearer picture of how different foods interact with the microbiome to modulate the production of bacterial metabolites will help sharpen the guidance nutritionists and doctors can give to people for disease prevention and therapy.”

These studies were funded by the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Princeton Alliance for Collaborative Research and Innovation, Princeton University.

Aside from his post as Director of the Princeton Branch of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Joshua Rabinowitz is Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and a member of the Rutgers Cancer Institute.

The mouse study, published in Nature Metabolism, found that the outcome depends on which part of the brain is targeted. Activating the receptor in the brainstem reduced appetite, while blocking the same receptor in the hypothalamus produced a similar weight loss effect through a different mechanism.

More than a billion people around the world are living with obesity, a condition that raises the risk of diseases including type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Losing weight can reduce some of these risks, but achieving substantial weight loss through diet and exercise alone can be difficult.

How Modern Weight Loss Drugs Target the Brain

A new generation of weight loss medications has emerged in recent years that act on specific receptors involved in appetite. By influencing these receptors, the drugs can reduce food intake, promote weight loss, and help regulate blood sugar.

Several widely used medications, including Wegovy and Ozempic, activate a protein receptor called the glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor (GLP-1R).

Other obesity treatments act on both GLP-1R and another receptor known as the glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor (GIPR). This second target has presented scientists with an unusual puzzle.

Some medications, including Mounjaro and Zepbound, activate GIPR. Others, such as MariTide, block it. Despite producing opposite effects on the same receptor, both approaches can help promote weight loss.

Researchers at the Institute of Metabolic Science, University of Cambridge, set out to understand why. Their experiments in mice revealed that the two types of GIPR drugs work through different regions of the brain. The researchers also found that these approaches can increase weight loss when paired with certain GLP-1-based weight loss medicines.

Tracking GIPR Activity in Different Brain Regions

To identify the brain regions responsible for these effects, the team used genetically engineered mice in which GIPR had been selectively removed from specific areas.

One group lacked GIPR in the brainstem, the region at the base of the brain just above the spinal cord that is involved in appetite and nausea. Another group lacked the receptor in the hypothalamus, an important brain region involved in regulating hunger and body weight. A third group consisted of normal, unmodified mice that served as controls.

The scientists treated the animals with different combinations of a GIPR agonist (which activates the receptor), a GIPR antagonist (which blocks the receptor) and a GLP-1 drug. They then monitored food consumption, body weight, fat mass, blood sugar control and brain activity.

Comparing the different groups allowed the team to pinpoint where each treatment was acting.

The results showed that GIPR agonists primarily work through the brainstem. Activating GIPR in this region reduced appetite and led to lower body weight.

Blocking a Brain Brake on Fullness

GIPR antagonists followed a different route.

Instead of acting primarily through the brainstem, the researchers found that blocking GIPR promoted weight loss through the hypothalamus. In this region, GIPR appears to function as a kind of ‘brake’ that limits how strongly the brainstem responds to signals indicating that the body is full.

Blocking the receptor effectively releases that ‘brake’, allowing fullness signals to have a stronger effect.

The researchers also found evidence that blocking GIPR could enhance the effects of emerging medicines that target the amylin receptor. This suggests that GIPR antagonists might eventually be useful for strengthening several different classes of obesity treatments.

Clues to More Powerful Obesity Drug Combinations

The results help explain why treatments such as MariTide can be effective. MariTide, currently in phase 3 clinical trials, combines GIPR antagonism with GLP-1 receptor agonism.

Understanding how these separate pathways interact could also help researchers design more effective combinations of obesity medicines in the future.

Dr. Jo Lewis, the study’s first author from the Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge, said: “Understanding which brain circuits respond to these medications – and how they do so – could help us design better drugs that produce more weight loss with fewer side effects, and which might work in combination with other obesity medicines to even greater effect.

“Our work also strengthens the idea that the brain is central to obesity treatment. Obesity drugs are not acting simply on the gut or pancreas. Instead, they have important effects on specific, identifiable brain circuits that regulate appetite and food intake.”

The research was funded by the Medical Research Council and Wellcome.

Scientists with the Double Chooz collaboration have now measured this lingering antineutrino emission for the first time. The research, recently published in Physical Review Letters, was led by Anthony Onillon and Thierry Lassere of the Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik (MPIK) in Heidelberg, Germany. The findings show that antineutrino detectors can gather information about nuclear reactors even while they are shut down, potentially creating new opportunities for reactor monitoring, nuclear safety, and safeguards.

Detecting Antineutrinos From a Shutdown Reactor

The measurement took place at the Chooz nuclear power plant in northern France. The Double Chooz detector sits underground about 400 meters from the facility’s two reactor cores. Inside the detector are more than 30 cubic meters of liquid scintillator, a material that produces tiny flashes of light when an antineutrino interacts within it.

“Antineutrinos interact only extremely rarely with matter. However, when one interacts within the Double-Chooz detector, a characteristic double-light signal is produced that can be distinguished from background events,” explains Thierry Lasserre from the independent research group OMINA, also located at MPIK. This distinctive signal enables scientists to identify antineutrinos coming from the reactors.

Researchers examined 17.2 days of observations collected while both reactor units were fully shut down. Over that period, the detector recorded around 100 antineutrino candidate events linked to residual radioactivity in the reactor cores and nearby spent-fuel cooling pools.

Measurements Match Nuclear Fuel Predictions

The detected signal closely matched detailed simulations that accounted for the remaining nuclear fuel inventory and the decay of long-lived fission products. The result provides the first direct experimental confirmation of predictions describing antineutrino emissions from shut down reactors and spent fuel.

“Until now, reactor antineutrino experiments have mainly focused on operating reactors, where the antineutrino flux is much larger. Detecting the tiny residual signal after shutdown required exceptionally low backgrounds and careful analysis techniques developed by the Double Chooz collaboration over many years,” adds Dr. Onillon.

Other experiments are already beginning to explore this new area. Initial results from JUNO-TAO, presented at Neutrino 2026, show that researchers are also using reactor-off data to study the faint antineutrino signal produced by spent nuclear fuel. TAO is working to isolate that weak emission, while the Double Chooz findings now provide the first published benchmark for studying the residual signal from shut-down reactors and spent-fuel pools.

A New Tool for Nuclear Reactor Monitoring

The findings suggest that antineutrino detectors could eventually provide useful information not only while reactors are operating, but also during maintenance and after shutdown. Measurements of this kind could become valuable for independently confirming reactor status and tracking spent-fuel inventories.

Double Chooz was originally built to investigate neutrino oscillations and played a key role in measuring the neutrino mixing angle θ13, a fundamental parameter describing how neutrinos change from one type to another as they travel. That measurement helped pave the way for future research into matter-antimatter asymmetries in the neutrino sector.

Now, Double Chooz has added another first to its scientific record by detecting the faint neutrino glow that continues after a nuclear reactor goes dark.

Scientists are getting a clearer picture of how thermodynamics behaves in the quantum world, and that progress could benefit both quantum technology and our understanding of familiar thermodynamic principles. Researchers at Aalto University have now taken an important step by demonstrating the first cyclic quantum heat engine built inside a superconducting circuit.

The experiment connects two areas of physics that normally describe very different scales. Quantum mechanics explains the behavior of matter at extremely small scales, even below the size of atoms, while thermodynamics describes how heat and energy behave in much larger systems, from collections of molecules to the universe itself. Bringing the two together raises a fundamental question: what happens to familiar thermodynamic processes when quantum effects such as tunneling, entanglement, and superposition enter the picture?

A Heat Engine Built for the Quantum World

Conventional heat engines turn heat into useful work. James Watt’s steam engine is one famous example, but the same basic concept remains central to modern transportation and electricity production, powering cars, ships, planes and many power plants.

The researchers have now created the world’s first superconducting quantum heat engine. The extremely small device combines a transmon qubit, a resonator and a quantum refrigerator.

Operating under ultracold quantum conditions, the engine was able to use the tiny amount of available heat to repeatedly produce positive work. Achieving this kind of cyclic operation has been an important objective for researchers working on quantum heat engines. The result provides a proof of concept for superconducting heat engines that could eventually contribute to improved quantum computing technology.

The study, led by Academy Professor Mikko Möttönen, was published in Nature Communications.

Recreating an Otto Cycle Near Absolute Zero

To make the engine operate, the researchers reproduced an Otto cycle inside a superconducting circuit. The Otto cycle is a thermodynamic process also used in car engines and other conventional machines.

“In our experiment, we built a nanofabricated heat engine using superconducting circuits and operated it in a cryostat near absolute zero. At its heart is a transmon qubit, one of the basic building blocks of modern quantum technologies,” says Tuomas Uusnäkki, the study’s first author.

The researchers connected the transmon qubit to a quantum circuit refrigerator, allowing them to control heat flow on the quantum scale and demonstrate that this heat could be transformed into measurable work. A conventional heat engine normally relies on separate hot and cold environments. In this system, however, the same quantum refrigerator can supply both heating and cooling.

“Our quantum-circuit refrigerator can be tuned to both heat and cool the qubit on demand. Using carefully timed control pulses, we drove the engine in an Otto cycle and monitored the qubit state as the engine ran,” explains Uusnäkki.

Measurements showed that heat passing through the qubit during the cycle was producing positive work.

“This is the first experimental demonstration of a cyclic quantum heat engine in superconducting circuits. Using a single controllable quantum refrigerator as both the hot and cold environment of the engine makes it simpler and more versatile,” says Uusnäkki.

Toward Autonomous Quantum Computer Hardware

The researchers are now trying to improve the design and eventually develop a fully autonomous heat engine. One possible use would be reading out qubits without having to carry a microwave pulse from millikelvin temperatures all the way to room temperature.

That capability could become especially valuable as quantum computers grow. Autonomous devices integrated directly into superconducting circuits could reduce both the cost and complexity of machines containing very large numbers of qubits.

“Finland’s Quantum Technology Strategy envisions a quantum computer with one thousand logical qubits by 2035, which probably means hundreds of thousands of physical qubits. Doing that with current technology requires millions of microwave cables costing thousand euros each. The cables also introduce noise into the system. Using autonomous devices instead would mostly eliminate the need for those cables,” Möttönen says.

Reducing the need for those microwave connections could therefore address two challenges at once: the enormous hardware requirements of large quantum computers and the unwanted noise that cables can introduce into quantum systems.

The pioneering experiment was carried out using OtaNano, Finland’s national research infrastructure for nano, micro and quantum technology. Funding came from the Research Council of Finland and the Finnish Cultural Foundation.