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Detection of atmospheric <sup>42</sup>Ar at the 10<sup>−21</sup> level by atom counting

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Nature Physics, Published online: 14 April 2026; doi:10.1038/s41567-026-03257-9

Argon-42 is a background in experiments that search for dark matter or neutrinoless double-beta decay. Now, the isotope’s abundance is measured by combining a laser-based atom trapping technique with isotope pre-enrichment.