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    Particle physics and cosmology tracker: milestones 2024-2026

    This tracker follows the frontier of particle physics and cosmology since the 2012 Higgs discovery, focusing on 2024-2026 milestones.[1] As of October 2026 the LHC is shut down for its high-luminosity upgrade, CERN is seeking funding for the Future Circular Collider, and DESI's full dark energy results are expected in 2027.[2][3][4] The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics went to Francis Halzen for IceCube's discovery of high-energy cosmic neutrinos.[5]

    Editor reviewedUpdated Particle physics and cosmologyPhysicsScience

    What we know

    • The LHC's last beams before its high-luminosity upgrade circulated on 27 June 2026[2]
    • The High-Luminosity LHC is scheduled to start operating in 2030[6]
    • CERN's 2026 strategy names FCC-ee its preferred next flagship, with a decision due by 2028[3]
    • China's CEPC is not in its 2026-2030 five-year plan[28]
    • The muon g-2 measurement agrees with the 2025 Standard Model prediction[8]
    • DESI's 2025 data preferred evolving dark energy at 2.8 to 4.2 sigma, below the 5-sigma discovery bar[29]
    • A 2025 community analysis puts the Hubble tension at 5 to 7 sigma[30]
    • LZ found no WIMP dark matter in 417 live days of data[31]
    • Fermilab aims to deliver DUNE's first neutrino beam by 2031[25]
    • The GWTC-5.0 catalogue brought confirmed gravitational-wave events to 390[12]
    • The 2026 physics Nobel recognised IceCube's discovery of astrophysical high-energy neutrinos[5]

    What we don't know yet

    • Whether CERN can assemble the extra funding needed to approve FCC-ee by 2028
    • Whether DESI's full five-year data will push the evolving dark energy hint past 5 sigma or erase it
    • Whether the Hubble tension reflects new physics or unrecognised measurement errors
    • Whether the remaining disagreement between data-driven and lattice-QCD muon g-2 predictions will be resolved
    • What dark matter is made of
    • Which neutrino mass ordering nature chose, which JUNO and DUNE aim to determine
    Story status

    Story status

    State
    developing
    Started
    2012-07-04
    Timeline entries
    26
    Last entry

    Timeline data (JSON)

    Where things stand

    The modern era of the field began with the 2012 discovery of the Higgs boson at CERN’s large-hadron-collider.[1] In October 2026 the collider is in Long Shutdown 3. CERN plans a gradual restart from 2028 and the High-Luminosity LHC from 2030.[6] In cosmology, the DESI survey has finished collecting its planned data, and a long-running particle anomaly, muon g-2, has largely faded.[7][8]

    Recent highlights

    • Nobel Prize. On 6 October 2026 the Nobel Prize in Physics went to Francis Halzen, whose vision led to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a cubic kilometre of instrumented Antarctic ice that discovered high-energy neutrinos from beyond the Solar System.[5][9]
    • Entangled Z bosons. In September 2026 CERN reported strong evidence from ATLAS and CMS that Z-boson pairs from Higgs decays are quantum entangled.[10]
    • Upgrade under way. Teams began disconnecting the LHC’s focusing magnets beside ATLAS and CMS in September. The first new niobium-tin quadrupole is due in the tunnel at the start of 2029.[11]
    • Gravitational waves. The GWTC-5.0 catalogue, released in May 2026, brought the number of confirmed events to 390.[12] LIGO-India broke ground in April and aims to start observing in 2030.[13] One event in the new catalogue, GW240615, was pinned to about 6 square degrees of sky, a record.[14]
    • FCC groundwork. Between May and August 2026, before the accelerators shut down, a team tested prototype parts for one of six proposed FCC-ee detector designs in beams from CERN’s SPS and PS.[15] CERN’s 2026–2030 strategy aims for it to be ready to seek Council approval for FCC-ee in 2028.[16]
    • New dark energy surveys. Rubin Observatory began its 10-year survey on 30 June 2026 and NASA’s Roman telescope launched on 30 August, adding two new probes of dark energy to DESI.[17][18][19]

    What to watch next

    • Gravitational waves, November 2026. The ligo-virgo-kagra detectors plan a six-month run, IR1, from early to mid-November 2026. Plans for the longer O5 run are still under discussion.[20] Both LIGO detectors will take part. Virgo will join with possible maintenance breaks, and KAGRA will join later.[21] More results from the second and third parts of O4 are also expected.[22]
    • The FCC funding plan, through 2028. CERN management reports annually to the Council on funding for the future-circular-collider, and a decision is due by 2028.[3] Watch for commitments from non-member states and the EU. Critics argue CERN should also prepare a cheaper fallback.[23]
    • DESI’s full results, 2027. The first dark energy analysis of the complete five-year dataset should show whether the evolving-dark-energy hint grows or fades.[4]
    • LZ through 2028. LZ aims for more than 1,000 live days of dark matter data.[24]
    • DUNE construction. Far-detector installation continues toward a first beam by 2031.[25] CERN’s cryostat steel was due to go underground in summer 2026.[26]
    • HL-LHC installation. The first new inner-triplet quadrupole is due in the LHC tunnel at the start of 2029.[11]
    • JUNO. Larger datasets are needed for its main goal, the neutrino mass ordering.[27]

    How this tracker is updated

    Entries come from official lab, collaboration and preprint feeds. Each is tagged confirmed, reported, disputed or unknown.

    Timeline

    26 confirmed

    1. confirmed

      Francis Halzen wins the Nobel Prize in Physics for IceCube[5][9]

    2. confirmed

      ATLAS and CMS find strong evidence of entangled Z bosons; LHC magnet disconnection begins[10][11]

    3. confirmed

      CERN's 2026-2030 strategy targets an FCC-ee approval request in 2028[16]

    4. confirmed

      NASA launches the Roman Space Telescope, a dark energy survey mission[18][19]

    5. confirmed

      ICHEP 2026 opens in Brazil; CMS presents 28 new results[52]

    6. confirmed

      Rubin Observatory starts its 10-year survey, with dark energy among its goals[17][51]

    7. confirmed

      LHC beams circulate for the last time before Long Shutdown 3[2][6]

    8. confirmed

      GWTC-5.0 adds 161 gravitational-wave events, total reaches 390[12][14]

    9. confirmed

      CERN Council names FCC-ee its preferred next flagship collider[50][3]

    10. confirmed

      DUNE begins installing far-detector steel a mile underground[49]

    11. confirmed

      LIGO-India breaks ground, targeting first observations in 2030[13]

    12. confirmed

      DESI completes its planned five-year survey with 47 million+ galaxies and quasars[48][7][4]

      Berkeley Lab announced completion on 15 April; Fermilab republished the release on 17 April.

    13. confirmed

      LZ sets new dark matter limits and sees solar neutrinos at 4.5 sigma[31][47]

    14. confirmed

      JUNO reports its first reactor neutrino oscillation results[46]

    15. confirmed

      LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA end the fourth observing run with about 250 candidates[44][45]

    16. confirmed

      US DOE and NSF withdraw support for the CMB-S4 project[43]

    17. confirmed

      Fermilab's Muon g-2 releases final result at 127 parts per billion[42][8]

      A May 2025 lattice-based Standard Model prediction agrees with the measurement, largely closing the long-running anomaly.

    18. confirmed

      KATRIN sets a neutrino mass limit below 0.45 eV[41]

    19. confirmed

      CERN publishes the Future Circular Collider feasibility study[39][40]

    20. confirmed

      LHCb observes matter-antimatter asymmetry in baryon decays for the first time[38]

    21. confirmed

      DESI three-year results strengthen hint of evolving dark energy (2.8-4.2 sigma)[29][37]

    22. confirmed

      Atacama Cosmology Telescope's final analysis finds the CMB described by Lambda-CDM[36]

    23. confirmed

      GW250114, the clearest gravitational-wave signal yet, confirms Hawking's area theorem[35]

    24. confirmed

      CERN delays LHC Long Shutdown 3 to July 2026 and High-Luminosity start to June 2030[34]

    25. confirmed

      ESA adopts the LISA space gravitational-wave mission, launch planned for 2035[33]

    26. confirmed

      US P5 roadmap backs DUNE, an offshore Higgs factory and muon collider R&D[32]

    Questions readers ask

    What is the biggest particle physics decision coming up?

    Whether to build the Future Circular Collider. The CERN Council will decide by 2028, after CERN management develops a funding plan.[3]

    When will the next big dark energy results come out?

    DESI expects its first dark energy results from the full five-year dataset in 2027.[4]

    When do gravitational-wave detectors start observing again?

    A six-month run called IR1 is planned to begin in early to mid-November 2026, with both LIGO detectors and Virgo, and KAGRA joining later.[20][21]

    Who won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics?

    Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.[5]

    Sources

    Each numbered claim is a statement we checked against the sources listed with it. Status shows how well established it is.

    1. [1]

      On 4 July 2012 the ATLAS and CMS collaborations at CERN announced the discovery of a new particle consistent with the Higgs boson. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    2. [2]

      Proton beams circulated in the LHC for the last time before Long Shutdown 3 on 27 June 2026; the final proton-proton collisions took place on 16 May and the final lead-lead collisions on 14 June. confirmedas of 2026-07-23

    3. [3]

      The CERN Council asked CERN management to develop a financially feasible funding plan for FCC-ee with member states, other countries and the EU, will receive annual progress reports from management, and will decide on the project by 2028. confirmedas of 2026-05-22

    4. [4]

      DESI will keep observing through 2028, expanding its map from 14,000 to about 17,000 square degrees, and its first dark energy results from the full five-year dataset are expected in 2027. confirmedas of 2026-04-15

    5. [5]

      The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics, announced on 6 October 2026, went to Francis Halzen of the University of Wisconsin–Madison for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin. confirmedas of 2026-10-06

    6. [6]

      During Long Shutdown 3, 1.2 km of LHC magnets and components are being replaced; the accelerator complex is due to restart gradually from 2028 and the High-Luminosity LHC to begin operating in 2030. confirmedas of 2026-06-29

    7. [7]

      In April 2026 DESI completed its planned five-year survey ahead of schedule, having observed more than 47 million galaxies and quasars, against an original target of 34 million, plus more than 20 million stars. confirmedas of 2026-04-15

    8. [8]

      The Muon g-2 Theory Initiative's 2025 Standard Model prediction differs from the experimental average by 38 plus or minus 63 (×10⁻¹¹), showing no significant tension between theory and experiment. confirmedas of 2025-05-27

    9. [9]

      IceCube, finished in 2011, uses more than 5,000 light sensors spread through a cubic kilometre of ice about two kilometres below the South Pole surface to catch the flashes of light from rare neutrino collisions; Halzen first proposed the idea in 1988. confirmedas of 2026-10-06

    10. [10]

      In September 2026 CERN reported that ATLAS and CMS had found strong evidence that pairs of Z bosons from Higgs boson decays are quantum entangled, the first such evidence for Z bosons, following their earlier observation of entangled top quarks. confirmedas of 2026-09-17

    11. [11]

      In September 2026 CERN began disconnecting the LHC's inner-triplet focusing magnets on either side of ATLAS and CMS; their niobium-tin replacements produce 11.3-tesla fields, about 40% stronger, the first new quadrupole is due in the tunnel at the start of 2029, and 16 cryostats and 28 cryo-assemblies will be installed in total. confirmedas of 2026-09-17

    12. [12]

      The GWTC-5.0 catalogue, released on 26 May 2026, added 161 gravitational-wave events from the O4b period (10 April 2024 to 28 January 2025), bringing the total confirmed since 2015 to 390, with O4 alone accounting for about 75% of all events. confirmedas of 2026-05-26

    13. [13]

      LIGO-India, funded by the Indian government, broke ground on 23 April 2026 at Aundha in Maharashtra; it will be an Advanced LIGO interferometer with two 4-km arms identical in design to the US detectors, with first observations targeted for 2030. confirmedas of 2026-04-23

    14. [14]

      GW240615, detected by the two LIGO detectors and Virgo on 15 June 2024, was localised to about 6 square degrees of sky, the most precise localisation of any gravitational-wave event so far. confirmedas of 2026-05-26

    15. [15]

      Six detector concepts for FCC-ee are being studied worldwide, and between May and August 2026 the IDEA concept team tested prototype detector components in beams from CERN's SPS and PS, among the last such tests before Long Shutdown 3. confirmedas of 2026-10-07

    16. [16]

      In September 2026 CERN published its 2026–2030 strategy, approved by the CERN Council in June, which makes timely completion of the High-Luminosity LHC its number-one priority and aims for CERN to be in a position to seek Council approval for FCC-ee in 2028. confirmedas of 2026-09-16

    17. [17]

      NSF NOIRLab, which operates Rubin with SLAC, announced on June 30, 2026 that the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time had officially started after a period of system optimization and an operational readiness review; Rubin Observatory's own website dates the start of the survey to July 2026. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    18. [18]

      NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy from Kennedy Space Center at 7:26 a.m. EDT on August 30, 2026. confirmedas of 2026-08-30

    19. [19]

      Roman has a field of view at least 100 times larger than Hubble's, carries a Wide Field Instrument and a Coronagraph, and is designed to address dark energy, exoplanets and infrared astrophysics. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    20. [20]

      As of September 2026 the collaborations plan a six-month observing run, IR1, beginning in early to mid-November 2026, while plans and timing for the fifth observing run (O5) are still under discussion. confirmedas of 2026-09-03

    21. [21]

      Both LIGO detectors are planned to observe in IR1, with Virgo joining subject to maintenance interruptions and KAGRA joining later in the run. confirmedas of 2026-09-03

    22. [22]

      As of November 2025, data from the remaining two segments of O4 were still under detailed examination, with further results expected in the following months. confirmedas of 2025-11-19

    23. [23]

      In a January 2026 Physics World opinion piece, physicist and historian Michael Riordan argued that geopolitics make it unrealistic to expect non-member countries to fund a third of the FCC, put FCC-ee's cost at about $18 billion with operations around 2050, and urged CERN to prepare a cheaper "Plan B" such as linear colliders (roughly €10 billion) or an LEP3 collider in the LHC tunnel (under €5 billion, up to 240 GeV). confirmedas of 2026-01-29· interpretation

    24. [24]

      LZ plans to run through 2028 to collect more than 1,000 live days, and its team is developing a larger next-generation detector, XLZD. confirmedas of 2025-12-08

    25. [25]

      Fermilab's priority is to deliver the first neutrino beam to DUNE by 2031. confirmedas of 2026-05-07

    26. [26]

      CERN's Director-General said CERN is providing DUNE's two cryostats, while US national laboratories supply superconducting magnets for the High-Luminosity LHC; the CERN steel was scheduled to be moved underground in summer 2026. confirmedas of 2026-05-07

    27. [27]

      JUNO's primary goal is to determine the neutrino mass ordering with a larger dataset. confirmedas of 2025-11-19

    28. [28]

      China's proposed 100 km Circular Electron-Positron Collider (CEPC), whose technical design reports were completed in October 2025, was not included in China's 15th Five-Year Plan for 2026 to 2030. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    29. [29]

      On 19 March 2025 DESI released baryon acoustic oscillation results from three years of data covering about 14 to 15 million galaxies and quasars; combined with other data they preferred evolving dark energy over a cosmological constant at 2.8 to 4.2 sigma, short of the 5-sigma discovery standard. confirmedas of 2025-03-19

    30. [30]

      The H0DN local value differs by 7.1 sigma from flat Lambda-CDM fitted to Planck, SPT and ACT CMB data, and by 5.0 sigma from a combination of Big Bang nucleosynthesis and DESI BAO data. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    31. [31]

      In December 2025 the LZ experiment reported 417 live days of data taken from March 2023 to April 2025 with no sign of WIMP dark matter, including a first search of the 3 to 9 GeV mass range. confirmedas of 2025-12-08

    32. [32]

      The December 2023 US P5 report recommended early implementation of DUNE, a significant US in-kind contribution to an offshore Higgs factory, and supported hosting a muon collider at Fermilab. confirmedas of 2023-12-08

    33. [33]

      ESA adopted the LISA space gravitational-wave observatory on 25 January 2024; its three spacecraft, forming a triangle with 2.5-million-km sides, are planned to launch in 2035. confirmedas of 2024-01-25

    34. [34]

      In October 2024 CERN moved the start of Long Shutdown 3 to July 2026 and the start of High-Luminosity LHC operation to June 2030, mainly because of difficulties with the ATLAS and CMS Phase II detector upgrades. confirmedas of 2024-10-04

    35. [35]

      GW250114, detected on 14 January 2025, is the clearest gravitational-wave signal yet and gave the best observational evidence to date for Hawking's black hole area theorem; results appeared in Physical Review Letters. confirmedas of 2025-09-10

    36. [36]

      The Atacama Cosmology Telescope's final (DR6) analysis in March 2025 found the CMB described by Lambda-CDM and, combined with Planck, CMB lensing and DESI, a Hubble constant of 68.22 ± 0.36 km/s/Mpc (68.43 ± 0.27 with DESI DR2). confirmedas of 2025-03-18

    37. [37]

      The DESI 2025 analysis favours dark energy models with w0 greater than -1 and wa less than 0, meaning dark energy whose strength changes over time. confirmedas of 2025-03-19

    38. [38]

      In March 2025 LHCb reported the first observation of matter-antimatter (CP) violation in baryon decays, a 2.45% asymmetry in Lambda-b baryon decays with 5.2 standard deviations significance, using LHC Run 1 and 2 data. confirmedas of 2025-03-25

    39. [39]

      CERN released the three-volume FCC feasibility study on 31 March 2025. confirmedas of 2025-03-31

    40. [40]

      CERN estimates the cost of building the FCC electron-positron stage, including the tunnel and infrastructure, at 15 billion Swiss francs, spread over about 12 years from the early 2030s. confirmedas of 2025-03-31

    41. [41]

      In April 2025 the KATRIN experiment reported in Science that the neutrino mass is below 0.45 electronvolts (90% confidence), half the previous limit, using 259 days of data from 2019 to 2021 and more than 36 million electrons. confirmedas of 2025-04-16

    42. [42]

      On 3 June 2025 Fermilab's Muon g-2 experiment released its final measurement of the muon's magnetic anomaly, with a precision of 127 parts per billion, better than its 140 ppb design goal. confirmedas of 2025-06-03

    43. [43]

      In July 2025 the US Department of Energy and National Science Foundation said they could no longer support CMB-S4, an estimated $900 million project to search the cosmic microwave background for primordial gravitational waves from inflation. confirmedas of 2025-07-23

    44. [44]

      The fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run ran from 24 May 2023 to 18 November 2025 and recorded roughly 250 candidate signals in real time. confirmedas of 2025-11-19

    45. [45]

      About 350 gravitational-wave signals had been detected by the end of O4, more than two-thirds of them during O4. confirmedas of 2025-11-18

    46. [46]

      China's JUNO, a 20-kiloton liquid-scintillator detector 52.5 km from nuclear reactors, measured two neutrino oscillation parameters 1.6 times more precisely than all previous experiments combined, using 59.1 days of data after completion in August 2025. confirmedas of 2025-11-19

    47. [47]

      LZ detected boron-8 solar neutrinos scattering off xenon nuclei with 4.5-sigma significance, above the 3-sigma evidence threshold. confirmedas of 2025-12-08

    48. [48]

      Berkeley Lab announced on 15 April 2026 that DESI had finished surveying the full area of its originally planned map at sunrise after the previous night's observations; Fermilab republished the announcement on 17 April. confirmedas of 2026-04-17

    49. [49]

      On 7 May 2026 Fermilab and SURF marked the start of moving 10 million pounds of steel beams a mile underground to build the structures of DUNE's far detectors. confirmedas of 2026-05-07

    50. [50]

      On 22 May 2026 the CERN Council updated the European Strategy for Particle Physics, naming the electron-positron Future Circular Collider as the preferred next flagship project. confirmedas of 2026-05-22

    51. [51]

      The NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory on Cerro Pachón in Chile, named after the astronomer Vera Rubin and aimed at questions including dark energy and dark matter, uses the 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope and the LSST Camera, the largest digital camera ever built, and is operated by NSF NOIRLab and SLAC. confirmedas of 2026-10-10

    52. [52]

      At the ICHEP 2026 conference in Natal, Brazil (30 July to 5 August 2026), CMS presented 28 new results, including an improved search for Higgs boson pair production that advances sensitivity to the Higgs self-coupling. confirmedas of 2026-08-05

    Revision history (2)
    1. Page created.
    2. Added the 2026 Nobel Prize (IceCube), Z-boson entanglement, LHC magnet disconnection, CERN's 2026–2030 strategy, GWTC-5.0, LIGO-India, Rubin and Roman; clarified the DESI completion date.

    Created Oct 10, 2026. Last reviewed by an editor on Oct 10, 2026. Next scheduled review: Nov 20, 2026.

    Cite this page

    "Particle physics and cosmology tracker: milestones 2024-2026." ContentLora, updated Oct 10, 2026. https://contentlora.com/events/particle-physics-cosmology-tracker

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