Claude reportedly reaches nine loops in a simplified particle-physics model
Anthropic says Claude worked largely unsupervised for days, using methods developed by SLAC’s Lance Dixon and colleagues. The company puts the cost at a few thousand dollars and says Dixon independently verified the result.
TLDR
Anthropic said on September 25, 2026, that Claude solved a nine-loop scattering-amplitude problem in planar N=4 super-Yang-Mills, a simplified particle-physics model where the previous record was eight loops. The company describes loops as increasingly fine corrections to formulas that predict particle behavior.
According to Anthropic, a single prompt started the run in Claude Science, which continued largely unsupervised for days at a cost of a few thousand dollars. The company credits methods developed by SLAC’s Lance Dixon and colleagues and says Dixon independently verified the result.
Dixon collaborator Kyle Cranmer says his team had worked on the problem for a couple of years and had recently been using AI tools such as Claude Code. He calls the result a huge accomplishment but argues it should be framed as a combination of human and AI contributions, built on researchers’ methods and tools.
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