Posted on 04/25/2006 7:21:47 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
Will scientists ever find the elusive Higgs particle, the last of the fundamental particles predicted by the Standard Model of particle physics and postulated to play a major role in how fundamental particles get their masses? Are there undiscovered particles “beyond” those described by the Standard Model? Experiments expected to begin next year at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a new particle accelerator at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), will take up the search and explore other intriguing questions about matter in our universe.
Ketevi Assamagan, a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, has been helping to build and coordinate analysis tools for ATLAS, one of the LHC’s multipurpose detectors. He will give a talk on LHC preparations and the facility’s prospects for discovery at the April meeting of the American Physical Society in Dallas, Texas on Sunday, April 23 at 9:06 a.m. (Room Pegasus B, Hyatt Regency Hotel). Brookhaven Lab is the headquarters for the 33 U.S. institutions contributing to the ATLAS project. Worldwide, more than 2,000 scientists are collaborating on ATLAS.
“The Standard Model has been quite successful in explaining the known particles, their properties, and the main interactions of matter — but there are problems,” Assamagan says.
For example, the Standard Model assumes there is only one type of Higgs particle. With this restriction, computations aimed at correcting the mass of the Higgs diverge so that physicists cannot get a finite result they could measure. Another problem is the enormous energy gap between the scale of gravity (the Planck scale) and the scale of the electroweak force, which governs the Standard Model.
To resolve these problems, scientists have proposed alternative theories or extensions to the Standard Model. In addition to searching for the Higgs particle, the LHC — a 27-kilometer ring-shaped accelerator capable of colliding protons or heavy ions — will probe these theories by searching for the kinds of particles they predict.
One extension theory is known as the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). “Instead of having only one Higgs particle, you end up with five of them,” Assamagan says. And as in all versions of the theory of Supersymmetry, each of these particles — and each of the other particles of the Standard Model — has a yet-to-be-discovered companion supersymmetric partner. “The existence of supersymmetric particles would protect the Higgs mass against divergent radiative corrections,” Assamagan says.
“Since no one has ever detected a sypersymmetric particle, it would be a very significant finding if we see one or more at the LHC,” he adds. The prospects for such as discovery at the LHC are quite good, he suggests, because the LHC machine will have sufficient energy and collision rates to produce these particles.
The LHC will also explore the idea that “large extra dimensions” exist to bridge the energy gap between the electroweak and Planck scales, as well as other theories that suggest the supposed fundamental particles of the Standard Model are not fundamental at all, but instead are themselves composites — that is, composed of even smaller, more fundamental building blocks yet to be discovered. In addition to exploring these realms “beyond the Standard Model,” LHC experiments will also probe the mysterious missing mass and dark energy of the universe, investigate the reason for nature’s preference for matter over antimatter, and probe matter as it existed at the very beginning of time.
“The ATLAS detector is truly multipurpose, with many different systems for detecting a wide array of particles and reconstructing what happened in the interaction region,” Assamagan says, “so it is not bound to any particular discovery. We hope it is made well enough to discover whatever the case is — even if it is a complete surprise.”
First collisions at the LHC are expected to take place in the summer of 2007.
Brookhaven Lab’s role in this work is funded by the Office of High Energy Physics within the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
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We need an accelerator like this to find the 'conservo-neuterino' that causes Republican cojones to shrink past the event horizon of political consciousness once they're elected to DC.
Whatever happened to the Texas Supercollider project? I know it got scrapped, but what happened to the site itself?
Cool article. But I am getting a little jealous of European science. They are going after more pure research like that to be accomplished with the LHC. I wish I was better at explaining why this sort of this is so critical to do. To many people have the attitude that if private enterprise won't do it, then it isn't worth doing. The technical spin offs from just building the thing are impressive enough. But what free market would think looking for the Higgs boson would be a direct money maker?
Took you two tries to post that crying baby picture, eh? Oh, well...
--Took you two tries to post that crying baby picture, eh? ---Oh, well...
Yep, first time I've ever done it. By the way...it was a response to a question, not the article.
We let it get away, but building the Super-collider ("Super-Clyde") would have eaten much of the national science budget for some time. Tough call either way.
I think they just dumped rubble in it and capped it off.
Where is America's Superconducting Supercollider? For that matter, where is America's moon base?
LOL!
The SSC was its own line item; it didn't come out of the DOE budget.
And then you have to ask what science was funded by the windfall of the SSC cancellation.
Thanks for the ping!
This is probably old but I saw it for the first time last week .
The new element has been named *Governmentium*.
Governmentium (Gv) has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy
neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of
312.
These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are
surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert.
However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with
which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium can cause
a reaction that would normally take less than a second to take over four
days to complete.
Governmentium does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in
which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange
places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time,
since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons,
forming isodopes.
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe
that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical
concentration! This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical
Morass.
When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium - an
element which radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has
half as many peons but twice as many morons."
LOL! -- if it was old, I hadn't seen it before. Thanks.
Good science. Soon to islamic Europe.
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