Research Highlights

The flagship supercomputer of the CSCS, "Piz Daint", needs to be replaced. Installation of the successor computer, "Alps", is taking place in three phases and will be completed in 2023. CSCS Director Thomas Schulthess explains in an interview why the new computer is so special.

A complex research experiment lasting several years shows that the electric dipole moment of the neutron is significantly smaller than previously assumed. It has thus become less likely that the existence of matter in the universe can be explained by precisely this dipole moment.

Researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a process that can provide conclusive evidence with regard to modern fakes of paintings, even in cases where the forger used old materials. This verification process requires less than 200 micrograms of paint.

ETH physicists have developed a quantum cascade laser that can be used to visualise weak infrared signals from space. It is now being put to use on a flight of the world’s largest airborne observatory.

With an instrument at the Very Large Telescope in Chile scientists of ETH Zurich observed planet-forming disks around young stars similar to the sun 4,5 billion years ago. Surprisingly, the disks are very different. The data will help to shed more light on the formation processes of planets.

CERN’s CMS experiment – one of the detectors at the Large Hadron Collider received a new heart today – a pixel detector much like a high-speed digital camera that snaps images up to 40 million times per second.

Young giant planets are born from gas and dust. Researchers of ETH Zürich and the Universities of Zürich and Bern simulated different scenarios relying on the computing power of the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre (CSCS) to find out how they exactly form and evolve.

The deuteron — one of the simplest atomic nuclei, consisting of just one proton and one neutron — is considerably smaller than previously thought. This finding was arrived at by an international research group.

Two years ago, an international research collaboration set out to investigate the mysterious dark matter and dark energy in our universe. Now an ETH postdoctoral researcher has co-led a publication presenting the exciting first results. ETH professor Alexandre Refregier explains why this publication will have a high impact and whether it proves Albert Einstein wrong.

An international team of researchers has discovered something extraordinary in space: a new star system forming from parts of a filamentary gas cloud.

In experiments using the wonder material graphene, ETH researchers have been able to demonstrate a phenomenon predicted by a Russian physicist more than 50 years ago. They analysed a layer structure that experts believe may hold unimagined promise.