{"id":30839,"date":"2026-01-23T23:00:43","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T23:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/?p=30839"},"modified":"2026-01-23T23:00:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T23:00:43","slug":"chinese-scientists-capture-first-evidence-of-a-ghost-effect-that-could-help-find-dark-matter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/chinese-scientists-capture-first-evidence-of-a-ghost-effect-that-could-help-find-dark-matter","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Scientists Capture First Evidence of a &#8220;Ghost Effect&#8221; That Could Help Find Dark Matter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Key Points<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Chinese scientists have captured the first direct evidence of the &#8220;Migdal effect,&#8221; a phenomenon predicted in 1939.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The effect occurs when a jolt to an atomic nucleus causes it to eject an electron.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The Migdal effect could be the key to detecting &#8220;light dark matter.&#8221; <\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The finding is a breakthrough in the nearly century-long search for dark matter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a breakthrough, a team of Chinese scientists has captured the first direct evidence of a long-theorized &#8220;ghost effect&#8221; in atomic physics. The discovery, which confirms a prediction made nearly 90 years ago, could be the key to finally finding dark matter, the mysterious, invisible substance that makes up most of the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The effect, known as the &#8220;Migdal effect,&#8221; was first predicted in 1939. It says that when an atom&#8217;s nucleus is suddenly jolted, for example, by a collision with a dark matter particle, it can cause one of the atom&#8217;s own electrons to be ejected. For decades, this has been purely a theoretical idea, as the effect is incredibly small and hard to detect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To capture it, the Chinese research team developed a special &#8220;atomic camera,&#8221; a super-sensitive gas detector that can track the path of a single atom and the electron it releases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By bombarding gas molecules with neutrons and sifting through over 800,000 potential events, they found six clear signals that showed the tell-tale signature of the Migdal effect: two particle tracks, one from the recoiling nucleus and one from the ejected electron, both starting from the same point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This discovery is a huge deal for the search for dark matter. For years, scientists have been looking for heavy, dark matter particles but have come up empty-handed. Now, the focus is shifting to &#8220;light dark matter,&#8221; which is much harder to detect because it doesn&#8217;t give the atomic nucleus much of a kick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Migdal effect changes all of that. It essentially turns a tiny, almost imperceptible jolt into a much larger, more easily measurable electronic signal. &#8220;With the Migdal effect, once an electron is ejected, our detector can, in theory, capture 100% of its energy,&#8221; said one of the lead researchers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This work fills a long-standing gap in experimental physics and represents a crucial first step toward using this &#8220;ghost effect&#8221; to hunt for the universe&#8217;s most elusive substance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Source:<\/strong> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-025-09918-8\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-025-09918-8\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Nature<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(2026).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Points In a breakthrough, a team of Chinese scientists has captured the first direct evidence of a long-theorized &#8220;ghost effect&#8221; in atomic physics. The&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techgolly.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}