FR-AM-0005

Room-Temperature Superconductivity — Reproducibility Under Laboratory Conditions

A room-temperature superconductor can be produced under reproducible laboratory conditions.

CollapsedVS-05·since 2026-09-20

Assessment trajectory

Collapsedstate held · last assessed 2026-09-20

Verification Matrix

Verification position derived from the record’s assessments; dates show when Faultline first recorded each stage.

VS-01

Assertion

—

VS-02

Published evidence

—

VS-03

Audit

—

VS-04

Replication

First recorded 2024-01-15

VS-05

Operation

Current from 2026-09-20 — present

Stage first recorded Current verification position Not yet recorded

State Warrant

Current stateCollapsedVS-05

Why this state?Corrective assessment following LPR-001-D22 bounded provenance repair. AS-001 and AS-002 are preserved append-only. The state and stage were explicitly re-evaluated because earlier wording relied partly on an unsupported universal standard; they are retained on the narrower independent-reproducibility basis. No new evidence is admitted: the 2025 LaSc₂H₂₄ work was already IN-006.

Assessment summaryLPR-001-D22 narrows the record's evidential basis but preserves the COLLAPSED / VS-05 judgement. The Dias-associated retractions are serious reliability and provenance failures, not established findings that both datasets were falsified; LK-99 remains decisive candidate-specific negative replication evidence, not a field-wide null experiment. High-pressure hydrides demonstrate very high transition temperatures below room temperature, while LaSc₂H₂₄ is now represented accurately as a single-team 298 K high-pressure preprint with reported supporting measurements but no independent replication. No candidate has yet supplied independently reproducible evidence that establishes room-temperature superconductivity under laboratory conditions. The collapse judgement is therefore about the represented claims failing to survive the required reproducibility test, not a claim that a universal three-signature rule has been formally adopted or that the underlying physical possibility has been disproved.

State entered2024-01-15

Last reaffirmed2026-09-20

Mechanisms

Causal mechanisms recorded for this claim. The State Warrant above remains the authoritative current assessment.

Collapse MechanismCM-001

Premature public claim before independent replication. The Dias-associated claims and LK-99 were publicly prominent before independent laboratories had established reproducibility. That sequence amplifies attention and raises the cost of later correction when a claim fails scrutiny. The record does not infer a shared intent, a common misconduct finding, or a demonstrated incentive motive across the cases. It records the narrower recurring risk: extraordinary materials claims can become public narratives before the independent evidence needed to establish them exists.

Resistance MechanismRM-001

Sample sensitivity and synthesis irreproducibility. Superconducting properties in complex materials are highly sensitive to synthesis conditions: stoichiometry, impurity levels, grain boundaries, and thermal history all affect whether a material exhibits superconductivity and at what temperature. This creates a structural resistance to reproducibility independent of any intent to deceive: even a genuine room-temperature superconductor might be difficult to reproduce if its properties depend on poorly characterised synthesis variables. The resistance mechanism explains why the high-pressure hydride results took years to reproduce even when genuine, and why the LK-99 apparent partial corroborations (some groups observed partial levitation) could coexist with the definitive null on superconductivity itself.

AttractorAT-001

Independently reproducible room-temperature superconductivity under documented laboratory conditions. A future candidate would reopen the record when independent laboratories reproduce a room-temperature transition using disclosed material preparation and measurement protocols, with convergent electrical, magnetic and other context-appropriate evidence sufficient to establish superconductivity. The record does not prescribe a universal fixed trio of signatures; the evidential package must be inspectable, coherent and independently reproducible. The attractor is outcome-based rather than tied to a particular material or headline temperature claim.

Assessment History

2024-01-15

Initial assessment — Collapsed

The claim has not been satisfied. No room-temperature superconductor has been reproduced under independent laboratory conditions to the community's current evidence standards. The two most prominent recent claims (Dias, LK-99) both failed replication — one through misconduct findings, one through rapid systematic null results from over forty independent groups. The confirmed high-pressure hydride results (INST-003) demonstrate that reproducible superconductivity approaching room temperature is achievable under extreme pressure, but not at room temperature or ambient pressure, and no material has met the community's evidence standard — zero resistance, Meissner effect, and specific heat anomaly, all independently confirmed — at conditions resembling laboratory practicality. The pressure state is COLLAPSED: the claim has been tested repeatedly, most recently and most rapidly in the LK-99 episode (INST-002), and no candidate has survived independent replication. The record remains open to reopening under AT-001 should a future material meet the tightened standard.

Verification Stage: VS-04 after ratified review (stored code VS-05 preserved).^*

2026-06-29

Reassessed, no change — Collapsed

The claim remains unsatisfied and the pressure state remains COLLAPSED. IN-006 documents that the field did not go quiet after the 2024 null result — a nickelate stabilisation at ambient pressure (Feb 2025), a new 298K high-pressure record (Nov 2025, unreplicated), and a March 2026 field-wide research roadmap all represent real activity — but none meets AT-001's reopening condition: zero resistance, Meissner effect, and specific-heat anomaly, confirmed independently, under the community's tightened standard. The November 2025 result is the closest superficial match to a 'room-temperature' headline since LK-99, and is explicitly logged here so that the record does not appear to have missed it; on examination it fails the same threshold IN-001 through IN-003 already established — high pressure, no independent confirmation, no full evidentiary set. This assessment exists to confirm the COLLAPSED state remains correct under current evidence, not to revise it. The record's status remains CLOSED.

Sourced from: SLAC/Stanford nickelate result via Physics World and ScienceDaily coverage (Feb 2025, reported through 2025–26); La-Sc-H 298K claim via Physics World coverage of an arXiv preprint (Nov 2025) — not independently replicated, and the arXiv preprint itself not directly read; PNAS roadmap referenced via secondary summary (March 2026), primary paper not directly read. Given this record's COLLAPSED/CLOSED status and the high public-interest sensitivity of room-temperature superconductivity claims, primary-source verification of the 298K claim in particular is recommended before this assessment is cited as authoritative.

Verification Stage: VS-04 after ratified review (stored code VS-05 preserved).^*

2026-09-20

Reassessed, no change — Collapsed

LPR-001-D22 narrows the record's evidential basis but preserves the COLLAPSED / VS-05 judgement. The Dias-associated retractions are serious reliability and provenance failures, not established findings that both datasets were falsified; LK-99 remains decisive candidate-specific negative replication evidence, not a field-wide null experiment. High-pressure hydrides demonstrate very high transition temperatures below room temperature, while LaSc₂H₂₄ is now represented accurately as a single-team 298 K high-pressure preprint with reported supporting measurements but no independent replication. No candidate has yet supplied independently reproducible evidence that establishes room-temperature superconductivity under laboratory conditions. The collapse judgement is therefore about the represented claims failing to survive the required reproducibility test, not a claim that a universal three-signature rule has been formally adopted or that the underlying physical possibility has been disproved.

Corrective assessment following LPR-001-D22 bounded provenance repair. AS-001 and AS-002 are preserved append-only. The state and stage were explicitly re-evaluated because earlier wording relied partly on an unsupported universal standard; they are retained on the narrower independent-reproducibility basis. No new evidence is admitted: the 2025 LaSc₂H₂₄ work was already IN-006.

Claim Lineage

Historical narrative recorded for this claim. It does not override the current State Warrant.

1986–2010s

High-temperature superconductor discovery and mechanism debate. Cuprate superconductors are discovered and reproduced; the mechanism remains unresolved (FR-AM-0003). The community establishes that superconductivity above 77K is achievable and reproducible. Room temperature remains a theoretical goal.

2015–19

High-pressure hydrides — confirmed reproducibility approaching room temperature. Hydrogen sulfide at 203K and lanthanum hydride at 250–260K are reproduced independently. Room-temperature superconductivity under extreme pressure becomes a credible near-term target.

2020–23

Dias-associated claims and retractions. Two high-profile Nature papers report near-room-temperature and room-temperature superconductivity, then are retracted over serious data-reliability and material-provenance concerns. The retraction notices do not establish that both cases were formal misconduct findings.

Jul–Aug 2023

LK-99 — rapid candidate-specific replication failure. International testing does not reproduce a superconducting transition or zero resistance in the claimed ambient-pressure material. The claim collapses through failed independent reproduction.

2024–25

No independently reproduced room-temperature candidate. High-pressure hydrides remain strong below-room-temperature context. A 2025 LaSc₂H₂₄ preprint reports an unreplicated 298 K high-pressure candidate; it is recorded without reopening the claim.

Open Questions

Questions retained in this record. The current State Warrant may have narrowed or reframed earlier questions.

OQ-001

What minimum form of independent, convergent evidence should the Observatory require before treating a room-temperature-superconductivity result as a reopening candidate, without imposing an unsupported universal checklist of signatures?

Raised 2024-01-15

OQ-002

CM-001 (pre-announcement collapse mechanism) appears independently in FR-AM-0001 and FR-AM-0005 across different eras and phenomena. Two occurrences of the same collapse mechanism within one programme is a new corpus observation. Does this constitute a programme-level mechanism pattern?

Raised 2024-01-15

OQ-003

FR-AM-0004 (commercial fusion) is the one escalating record in PROG-AM. The programme diagnosis suggests it may eventually follow the same collapse dynamic as FR-AM-0001 and FR-AM-0005. Is there evidence bearing on whether FR-AM-0004 is structurally different from the collapsed records — and if so, what protects it from the same dynamic?

Raised 2024-01-15

OQ-004

IN-006 now records a single-team 298 K high-pressure LaSc₂H₂₄ preprint without reopening the claim. What threshold—such as an independent replication attempt, a peer-reviewed primary report, or a materially new evidential feature—should trigger a Normal Record Review rather than repeated logging of an unreplicated candidate?

Raised 2026-06-29

Mutation Log

Mutation	Date	Field	Prior value	Current value
M-015	2026-09-20	provenance_repair	LPR-001-D22 discrepancies_found / pending	LPR-001-D22 discrepancies_corrected / completed
M-014	2026-09-20	provenance_review	—	LPR-001-D22 discrepancies_found / pending
M-013	2026-09-06	description_restored	Legacy ingestion cutoffs: mechanisms:CM-001, mechanisms:RM-001, mechanisms:AT-001, lineage:1986–2010s	Source-restored complete descriptions
M-012	2026-07-09	description_reordered	—	DESCRIPTION-REORDERED
M-011	2026-07-08	reference_corrected	—	REFERENCE-CORRECTED
M-010	2026-06-29	open_question_raised	—	OQ-RAISED
M-009	2026-06-29	assessment_issued	AS-001	AS-002
M-008	2026-06-29	instances_logged	—	INSTANCES-LOGGED
M-007	2026-06-18	record_id_migrated	FR-MF-0005	FR-AM-0005
M-006	2024-01-15	programme_panel_added	—	PROGRAMME-PANEL-ADDED
M-005	2024-01-15	null_condition_failed	—	NULL-CONDITION-FAILED
M-004	2024-01-15	mechanisms_recorded	—	MECHANISMS-RECORDED
M-003	2024-01-15	assessment_issued	—	ASSESSMENT-ISSUED
M-002	2024-01-15	instances_logged	—	INSTANCES-LOGGED
M-001	2024-01-15	record_created	—	RECORD-CREATED

Evidence Sources

6 instances on recordShow sources ↓Hide ↑

IN-001Ranga Dias / University of Rochester — carbonaceous sulfur hydride and lutetium hydride claims1. Nature, ‘Retraction Note: Room-temperature superconductivity in a carbonaceous sulfur hydride’ (2022) · Undisclosed non-standard background subtraction and loss of confidence in magnetic-susceptibility data2. Nature, ‘Retraction Note: Evidence of near-ambient superconductivity in a N-doped lutetium hydride’ (2023) · Unresolved reliability and material-provenance concernscontesting

IN-002LK-99 — rapid global replication attempt and failure1. Nature, ‘The search for room-temperature superconductors is heating up’ (2023) · Replication activity and absence of confirmed LK-99 superconductivity2. Guo et al., ‘Pressure-induced zero resistance in a three-dimensional topological material’ is not LK-99 evidence; LK-99 replication literature finds no superconducting transition · Candidate-specific negative replication evidencecontesting

IN-003High-pressure hydride superconductors — confirmed reproducibility below room temperature1. Drozdov et al., ‘Conventional superconductivity at 203 kelvin at high pressures in the sulfur hydride system’, Nature 525 (2015) DOI 10.1038/nature14964 · H₃S high-pressure transition2. Somayazulu et al., ‘Evidence for superconductivity above 260 K in lanthanum superhydride at megabar pressures’, Physical Review Letters 122 (2019) DOI 10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.027001 · LaH₁₀ high-pressure evidencepartial

IN-004Community methodological response — reproducibility standards tighten1. Nature Physics, commentary on the LK-99 episode and standards of evidence for superconductivity claims (2023) · Methodological scrutiny; not a formal universal three-signature ruleneutral

IN-005Post-LK-99 landscape — no credible room-temperature superconductivity claim survives1. Nature reporting and peer-reviewed replication literature on LK-99; Nature retraction notices for Dias-associated claims · No represented candidate independently reproduced by 2024contesting

IN-0062025–26 activity — nickelate stabilisation, a new high-pressure record claim, and a field-wide roadmap1. SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, nickelate superconductivity announcement (4 Feb 2025) · Ambient-pressure nickelate stability; transition temperature far below room temperature2. LaSc₂H₂₄ high-temperature-superconductivity preprint (submitted 29 Sep 2025) · 195–266 GPa; onset up to 298 K; resistance, field suppression and thirteen repeat runs; no independent replicationpartial