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What led to retraction of the article on room-temperature superconductivity in the journal Nature: a series of oversights or falsification?

† , , ‡ 
Lebedev Physical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Leninsky prosp. 53, Moscow, 119991, Russian Federation

In 2020, the journal Nature published an article under the notorious title "Room-temperature superconductivity in a carbonaceous sulfur hydride" (Nature 586 373—377 (2020)) that caused, without exaggeration, an effect like an exploding bomb; after all, it was stated that one of the most important problems in modern physics (implementation of superconductivity at room temperature) has already been solved! In two years, the article has been cited over 500 times and read over 100,000 times. However, in the scientific community, the article led to a great deal of questions, skepticism, and severe criticism. Eventually, on September 26, 2022, Nature retracted this publication. We give here the main reasons for the retraction and our commentary on the significance of this act for the physics of high-temperature superconductivity in general and the superconductivity of hydrides in particular.

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Fulltext is also available at DOI: 10.3367/UFNe.2022.11.039265
Keywords: room-temperature superconductivity, high pressures, hydrides
PACS: 74.25.−q, 74.70.−b, 99.10.−x (all)
DOI: 10.3367/UFNe.2022.11.039265
URL: https://ufn.ru/en/articles/2022/12/i/
001112544300008
2-s2.0-85182903704
2022PhyU...65.1313S
Citation: Sadakov A V, Sobolevsky O A, Pudalov V M "What led to retraction of the article on room-temperature superconductivity in the journal Nature: a series of oversights or falsification?" Phys. Usp. 65 1313–1316 (2022)
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Received: 14th, October 2022, 10th, November 2022

Оригинал: Садаков А В, Соболевский О А, Пудалов В М «Что привело к изъятию статьи о комнатно-температурной сверхпроводимости из журнала "Nature": череда оплошностей или фальсификация?» УФН 192 1409–1412 (2022); DOI: 10.3367/UFNr.2022.11.039265

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