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Failure-mode index

Search what already failed

A searchable index of real negative results, null findings, and replication failures from the published literature — so you can learn what didn't work before repeating it.

WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record (title, authors, DOI) compiled from open scholarly databases, with the abstract shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed (e.g. Creative Commons); otherwise a short excerpt is shown for reference under fair use. WASTE classifies each work by failure type; classifications are automated and approximate.

21253 results · page 185 of 709

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Reconciling the positive DAMA annual modulation signal with the negative results of the CDMS II experiment

R. Foot · 2004 · arXiv

We examine the recent CDMS II results in the context of the mirror matter interpretation of the DAMA/NaI experiment.We find that the favoured mirror matter interpretation of the DAMA/NaI experiment -- a $He'/H'$ dominated halo with a small $O'$ component is fully consistent with the null results reported by CDMS II. While the CDMS II experiment is quite sensitive to a heavy $Fe'$ component, and may yet find a positive result, a more decisive test of mirror matter-type dark matter would require a lower threshold experiment using light target elements.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

The Orientation of Spin Vectors of Galaxies in the Ursa Major Filament

Cheongho Han · 1994 · arXiv

Spin vectors of 60 galaxies in the ``Ursa Major Filament'' are obtained from CCD images and spectroscopic determinations of the directions of rotation. These data are used to remove the four-fold degeneracy introduced by the project ed images of galaxies, making possible the complete reconstruction of the galaxy spin vectors. Several possible organizations of spin vectors are investigated by means of statistical analyses of the three-dimensional spin vector maps. The results indicate that there exists no significant alignment of galaxy spin vectors with respect to the supergalactic plane, the

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Statistical interpretations of the null result of the KARMEN 2 experiment

C. Giunti · 1998 · arXiv

Several possible statistical interpretations of the null result of the KARMEN 2 neutrino oscillation experiment are discussed with the aim of clarifying the implications of the fact that KARMEN 2 did not observe any of the expected background events. The formalism that allows to take into account the error of the expected mean background in a Poisson process with background is presented and applied to the statistical analysis of the KARMEN 2 null result. The possibility of ignoring the expected mean background calculated for the KARMEN 2 experiment is discussed and it is shown that the resulti

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

How to interpret a discovery or null result of the $0ν2β$ decay

Zhi-zhong Xing, Zhen-hua Zhao, Ye-Ling Zhou · 2015 · arXiv

The Majorana nature of massive neutrinos will be crucially probed in the next-generation experiments of the neutrinoless double-beta ($0ν2β$) decay. The effective mass term of this process, $\langle m\rangle^{}_{ee}$, may be contaminated by new physics. So how to interpret a discovery or null result of the $0ν2β$ decay in the foreseeable future is highly nontrivial. In this paper we introduce a novel three-dimensional description of $|\langle m\rangle_{ee}^{}|$, which allows us to see its sensitivity to the lightest neutrino mass and two Majorana phases in a transparent way. We take a look at

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Nothing's plenty: The significance of null results in physics education research

Luke D. Conlin, Eric Kuo, Nicole R. Hallinen · 2018 · arXiv

A central aim of physics education research is to understand the processes of learning and use that understanding to inform instruction. To this end, researchers often conduct studies to measure the effect of classroom interventions on student learning outcomes. Many of these intervention studies have provided an empirical foundation of reformed teaching techniques, such as active engagement. However, many times there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that the intervention had the intended effect, and these null results often end up in the file drawer. In this paper, we argue that null re

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

What if we find nothing? Bayesian analysis of the statistical information of null results in future exoplanet habitability and biosignature surveys

Daniel Angerhausen, Amedeo Balbi, Andjelka B. Kovačević et al. · 2025 · arXiv

Future telescopes will survey temperate, terrestrial exoplanets to estimate the frequency of habitable ($η_{\text{Hab}}$) or inhabited ($η_{\text{Life}}$) planets. This study aims to determine the minimum number of planets ($N$) required to draw statistically significant conclusions, particularly in the case of a null result (i.e., no detections). Using a Bayesian framework, we analyzed surveys of up to $N=100$ planets to infer the frequency of a binary observable feature ($η_{\text{obs}}$) after null results. Posterior best fits and upper limits were derived for various survey sizes and compa

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Supergravity corrections to the $(g-2)_l$ factor by Implicit Regularization

J. E. Ottoni, A. P. Baeta Scarpelli, Marcos Sampaio et al. · 2006 · arXiv

We apply Implicit regularization in the calculation of the one-loop graviton and gravitino corrections to the anomalous magnetic moment of the lepton in unbroken supergravity, which is known to be an important test for any regularization method. We find a null result as it is expected from supersymmetry. We compare our results with the ones obtained by using Differential Regularization and Dimensional Reduction, which are known to preserve supersymmetry at one-loop order.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Extracting constraints from direct detection searches of supersymmetric dark matter in the light of null results from the LHC in the squark sector

Q. Riffard, F. Mayet, G. Bélanger et al. · 2016 · arXiv

The comparison of the results of direct detection of Dark Matter, obtained with various target nuclei, requires model-dependent, or even arbitrary, assumptions. Indeed, to draw conclusions either the spin-dependent (SD) or the spin-independent (SI) interaction has to be neglected. In the light of the null results from supersymmetry searches at the LHC, the squark sector is pushed to high masses. We show that for a squark sector at the TeV scale, the framework used to extract contraints from direct detection searches can be redefined as the number of free parameters is reduced. Moreover, the co

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Can WIMP Spin Dependent Couplings explain DAMA data, in light of Null Results from Other Experiments?

Christopher Savage, Paolo Gondolo, Katherine Freese · 2004 · arXiv

We examine whether the annual modulation found by the DAMA dark matter experiment can be explained by Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), in light of new null results from other experiments. CDMS II has already ruled out most WIMP-nucleus spin-independent couplings as an explanation for DAMA data. Hence we here focus on spin-dependent (axial vector; SD) couplings of WIMPs to nuclei. We expand upon previous work by (i) considering the general case of coupling to both protons and neutrons and (ii) incorporating bounds from all existing experiments. We note the surprising fact that CMDS

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Projection Measurement of the Maximally Entangled N-Photon State for a Demonstration of N-Photon de Broglie Wavelength

F. W. Sun, Z. Y. Ou, G. C. Guo · 2005 · arXiv

We construct a projection measurement process for the maximally entangled N-photon state (the NOON-state) with only linear optical elements and photodetectors. This measurement process will give null result for any N-photon state that is orthogonal to the NOON state. We examine the projection process in more detail for N=4 by applying it to a four-photon state from type-II parametric down-conversion. This demonstrates an orthogonal projection measurement with a null result. This null result corresponds to a dip in a generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer for four photons. We find that the d

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Arago (1810): the first experimental result against the ether

Rafael Ferraro, Daniel M. Sforza · 2004 · arXiv

95 years before Special Relativity was born, Arago attempted to detect the absolute motion of the Earth by measuring the deflection of starlight passing through a prism fixed to the Earth. The null result of this experiment gave rise to the Fresnel's hypothesis of an ether partly dragged by a moving substance. In the context of Einstein's Relativity, the sole frame which is privileged in Arago's experiment is the proper frame of the prism, and the null result only says that Snell's law is valid in that frame. We revisit the history of this premature first evidence against the ether theory and

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

On the Casimir effect between superconductors

Giuseppe Bimonte · 2019 · arXiv

A recent experiment [R. A. Norte et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 121}, 030405 (2018)] probed the variation of the Casimir force between two closely spaced thin Al films, as they transition into a superconducting state, observing a null result. We present here computations of the Casimir effect for superconductors, based on the Mattis-Bardeen formula for their optical response. We show that for the Al cavity used in the experiment the effect of the transition is over two hundred and fifty times smaller than the experimental sensitivity, in agreement with the observed null result. We demonstrate th

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Internal cumulants for femtoscopy with fixed charged multiplicity

H. C. Eggers, B. Buschbeck · 2013 · arXiv

A detailed understanding of all effects and influences on higher-order correlations is essential. At low charged multiplicity, the effect of a nonpoissonian multiplicity distribution can significantly distort correlations. Evidently, the reference samples with respect to which correlations are measured should yield a null result in the absence of correlations. We show how the careful specification of desired properties necessarily leads to an average-of-multinomials reference sample. The resulting internal cumulants and their averaging over several multiplicities fulfil all requirements of cor

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Neutrino dispersion relation changes due to radiative corrections as the origin of faster-than-light-in-vacuum propagation in a medium

Karl Svozil · 2011 · arXiv

Radiative corrections to the dispersion of neutrinos in nonstandard vacuum may give rise to "boosts" in their speed. This could explain recent experimental evidence by the OPERA collaboration, as well as the null result indicated by the supernova 1987A (SN 1987A) measurements of neutrino and photon arrival times.

Negative / Null Result Report

The Effects of Repeated Reading on Grade-Level Fluency Growth and Proficiency in First Grade

Mallory Wilson-Anderson, null null, null null et al. · 2017 · Journal of Applied and Educational Research

Throughout the country, students were identified as, “at risk” due to their lack of fluency proficiency on the Formative Assessment for Teachers (FAST). Students who did not attain grade-level fluency suffered from comprehending text,…

View details →DOI: 10.58809/cpni1958
Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Development and Application of a Detection System for a Novel Class of Gravitational-Wave Transients

Soichiro Kuwahara, Kipp Cannon · 2023 · arXiv

We previously described the development of a detection system for a novel class of transient gravitational-wave sources taking the form of Cherenkov-like bursts. Here, we have applied the system to the data of the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA O3 science run, and report a null result. The ad hoc waveform model is motivated by the conjectured emission of gravitational waves from a curvature source moving at super-luminal speed, and while there is no plausible natural or artificial source of such waves, we nevertheless use the null result to infer a tongue-in-cheek upper bound on the number density of near-E

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Non-SUSY Searches at the Tevatron

A. Boveia · 2009 · arXiv

I describe recent signature-based searches for anomalous physics processes using up to 2.9/fb of data from the CDF or D0 detectors at the Fermilab Tevatron. While each search conveys its sensitivity by interpreting a null result in terms of one or more specific exotic models, the searches are designed to be broadly sensitive to many models.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Comment on "Is the nonlinear Meissner effect unobservable?"

Anand Bhattacharya, Igor Zutic, Oriol T. Valls et al. · 1998 · arXiv

In a recent Letter (Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, p.5640 (1998), cond-mat/9808249 v3), it was suggested that nonlocal effects may prevent observation of the nonlinear Meissner effect in YBCO. We argue that this claim is incorrect with regards to measurements of the nonlinear transverse magnetic moment, and that the most likely reason for a null result lies elsewhere.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Axion detection by ring lasers

L. Cooper, G. E. Stedman · 1995 · arXiv

A ring-laser experiment, similar to the Canterbury ring laser, to detect axion- and {\sc qed}-induced vacuum birefringence is proposed. It uses a slowly modulated magnetic field and a novel polarization geometry. Both axion coupling and vacuum birefringence would modulate the Sagnac beat frequency. A null result could place sensitive bounds on the axion mass and on two-photon coupling.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Michelson-Morley experiment within the quantum mechanics framework

D. L. Khokhlov · 2008 · arXiv

It is revisited the Michelson-Morley experiment within the quantum mechanics framework. One can define the wave function of photon in the whole space at a given moment of time. The phase difference between the source and receiver is a distance between the source and receiver at the time of reception hence it does not depend on the velocity of the frame. Then one can explain the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment within the quantum mechanics framework.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

New conceptions on the light wave theory in a moving frame of reference

Daniel Lima Nascimento · 2013 · arXiv

A reanalisis of the effect of a moving frame of reference is done, showing that the null result of the Michelson-Morley's experimente of 1887 on the possibility of detecting the variation of the velocity of light with respect to a moving observer, na observer at the Earth, was already implied in these equations; thereforewith no need of new ad hoc hypotheses to explain it in the classical framework. In fact, it will be shown that behind those equations is hidden the fascinating phenomenon of the absolute motion.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

An observational constraint on gravitational lensing by objects of mass 10^(9.5) - 10^(10.9) Mo

Pedro Augusto, Peter N. Wilkinson · 2000 · arXiv

A radio-based search for strong gravitational lensing, with image separations in the range 160-300 milliarcsec (mas), has yielded a null result for a sample of 1665 sources (Augusto, Wilkinson & Browne 1998) whose mean redshift is estimated to be ~1.3. The lensing rate for this previously-unexplored separation range, <1:555 at the 95% confidence level, is less than on arcsecond-scales - as expected from models of lensing galaxy populations. Lensing on 160-300 mas scales is expected to arise predominantly from spiral galaxies at a rate dependent on the disk-halo mass ratio and the evolving numb

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

The Status of MSSM Higgs Boson Searches at LEP

Andy Hocker · 1999 · arXiv

The most recently available results from searches conducted by the four LEP experiments at 189 GeV center-of-mass energy for Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) are presented. No evidence for a signal has been observed, and the null result is used by the experiments, both individually and collectively, to exclude regions of the MSSM parameter space and to set lower limits on Higgs boson masses at 95% confidence level in constrained MSSM scenarios.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Comparison of dynamical and equilibrium surface spin-reorientations: Inferences on the nature of the phase transitions in the presence of dipole interactions

G. He, R. Belanger, P. H. Hguyen et al. · 2018 · arXiv

The influence of long-range dipole interactions on two dimensional magnetism has been studied extensively in the spin-reorientation transition of ferromagnetic ultrathin films. Although there is a great deal of experimental information on the perpendicular domain phase that is stabilized by dipole interactions, the transitions to or from the domain phase are subtle and difficult to characterize experimentally. Magnetic susceptibility measurements show no divergence in the vicinity of the spin-reorientation transition as a function of thickness -- a null result that is difficult to interpret wi

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Proton spin content from skyrmions

G. Kaelbermann, J. M. Eisenberg, Andreas Schaefer · 1994 · arXiv

It is well known that in lowest order the skyrmion model of the nucleon gives vanishing spin content. With new data indicating a proton spin content $ΔΣ= 0.22\pm 0.14,$ it is an increasing challenge to find ways in which the skyrmion can move away from the null result. We show here that a particular term in the skyrmion lagrangian in SU(3) involving six derivatives of the field can, with plausible parameters, yield a spin content consistent with present experiment.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Angular Dependence of the Nonlinear Transverse Magnetic Moment of YBCO in the Meissner state

Anand Bhattacharya, Igor Zutic, Oriol T. Valls et al. · 1998 · arXiv

The angular dependence of the nonlinear transverse magnetic moment of untwinned high-quality single crystals of optimally doped YBCO have been studied at a temperature of 2.5K using a low frequency AC technique. The absence of any signature at angular period 2π/4is analyzed in light of the numerical predictions of such a signal for a pure d-wave order parameter with line nodes. Implications of this null result for the existence of a non-zero gap at all angles on the Fermi surface are discussed.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Search for Large Extra Dimensions in the Production of Jets and Missing Transverse Energy in $p\bar{p}$ Collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.96 TeV

CDF Collaboration · 2006 · arXiv

We present the results of a search for new physics in the jets plus missing transverse energy data sample collected from 368 pb^{-1} of ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV recorded by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We compare the number of events observed in the data with a data-based estimate of the Standard Model backgrounds contributing to this signature. We observe no significant excess of events, and we interpret this null result in terms of lower limits on the fundamental Planck scale for a large extra dimensions scenario.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

A causal approach to first-order optical equivalency of inertial systems, by means of a beam-pointing test-experiment based on speed-induced deflection of light

G. Sardin · 2004 · arXiv

Within the framework of test-experiments, an original pointing set-up based on speed-induced deflection of a light-beam and using a high-resolution opto-electronic array as a position detector, is proposed. The device would provide a new way to ratify the first order optical equivalency of inertial systems and to sound its causal groundwork. The type of test provided applies to any device using beams, but here it has been adapted for an up-dated check-up of Michelson's experiment and to bear out the interpretation derived from its null result. Rather than searching for a speed-induced phase-sh

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Dead Science Walking: Publication Bias and the AI Scientist Pipeline

Kargi Chauhan · 2026 · arXiv

AI scientist systems are beginning to automate the production, evaluation, and iteration of scientific hypotheses. Their promise is speed; their risk is that speed also scales errors embedded in the scientific record. We argue that a near-term risk is corpus failure: AI scientist systems are trained on and grounded in a literature that over-represents positive results and under-represents null findings. We formalise this distortion as the null result gap, estimate it across three domains (drug discovery ~0.60, psychology ~0.56, cancer biology ~0.35), and introduce an amplification index for re

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Explaining Michelson-Morley without Special Relativity

Sanjay M. Wagh, Abhijit H. Wagh · 2010 · arXiv

In this paper, we first discuss the concept of an emission wave. In the history of science, this is the first time we have discovered a new way in which (transverse) waves are realized in nature. It can therefore be expected to lead to important changes in the perspective about the nature of light or radiation. Then, we point out that the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment is a natural and straightforward consequence of light being an emission wave. Concepts of special relativity, of length contraction and of time dilation, are not required for this explanation, however.