Posted on 07/20/2010 1:39:51 PM PDT by decimon
Electric dipole moment would explain the creation of the universe in the form that we know it
This release is available in German.
IMAGE: Juelich researchers want to demonstrate the electric dipole moment of the electron in cooperation with colleagues in the USA and the Czech Republic. Many physical theories presume its existence --... Click here for more information.
Electrons are negatively charged elementary particles. They form the shells around atoms and ions. This or something similar is what you will find in text books. Soon, however, this information may have to be supplemented. The reason is that many physicists believe that electrons have a permanent electric dipole moment. An electric dipole moment is usually created when positive and negative charges are spatially separated. Similar to the north and south poles of a magnet, there are two electric poles. In the case of electrons, the situation is much more complicated because electrons should not actually have any spatial dimension. Despite this, an entire range of physical theories that go beyond the standard model of elementary particle physics are based upon the existence of dipole moment. These theories in turn would explain how the universe in the form that we know it could have been created in the first place. According to prevailing theories, the big bang some 13.7 billion years ago would have had to have created just as much matter as antimatter. Since both obliterate each other, nothing would have remained. In reality, however, more matter than antimatter was actually created. An electric dipole moment of the electron could explain this imbalance.
Up to now, nobody has successfully proven the existence of this assumed tiny dipole moment. Existing methods are simply not sensitive enough. A small piece of ceramic is set to change this soon. Dr. Marjana Ležaić and Dr. Konstantin Rushchanskii from the Institute of Solid State Physics at Forschungszentrum Jülich and Professor Nicola Spaldin from the University of California in Santa Barbara designed this ceramic, which has very special properties, in a virtual laboratory using the Jülich supercomputer JUROPA. The new europium barium titanate should enable measurements to be 10 times more sensitive than they were in the past. According to the Jülich physicists, "this could be sufficient to find the electric dipole moment of the electron".
As electric moment cannot be directly measured, the physicists are working together with scientists from the American Yale University as well as with Czech research institutions in Prague in order to indirectly prove its existence. The researchers in Yale have developed an experimental setup that uses an extremely sensitive SQUID magnetometer to measure the magnetization of the piece of ceramic in an electric field. Their aim is to demonstrate a change in the magnetization when the electric field is reversed. This would simultaneously be the sought-after evidence that the electric dipole moment exists. In an electron, an electric dipole can only ever be oriented parallel or anti-parallel to the electron spin. In an electric field, most of the electrons are oriented so that their dipole moment is parallel to the field. Fewer are oriented in the other direction. This should lead to a measurable magnetization. If the electric field is reversed, the dipole moments of the electrons are reversed leading consequently to a simultaneous, measurable change in the magnetization. Without an electric dipole moment, on the other hand, the magnetization would remain unchanged.
"It would have been very difficult to find such a well-suited material by trial and error," said Ležaić. This material must have an unusual combination of properties: a high concentration of magnetic ions, magnetic disorder at temperatures below four degrees Kelvin and a reversible electric polarization. "Our colleagues in Yale who came up with the idea of the measurements and conducted them had already tested different materials. However, a new material with all of the necessary properties can be found faster with the use of theoretical analysis and computer simulations." Ležaić, as the head of the young investigators group, her group member Rushchanskii, and her cooperation partner Spaldin virtually synthesized and analysed europium barium titanate on the supercomputer in Jülich. To do so, all they needed was its chemical composition and the basic equations of quantum mechanics. From these, they calculated the interaction between individual atoms and electrons and the local magnetic properties. So it was that they found the optimum ceramic.
Team colleagues in Prague have already synthesized and characterized the material in the laboratory and confirmed the properties calculated in Jülich. Only the sought-after dipole moment of the electron remains undiscovered. "Unwanted effects are still inhibiting the measurements," said a disappointed Ležaić. "But we're working intensively on improving the material even further."
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Original publication: A multiferroic material to search for the permanent electric dipole moment of the electron; DOI: 10.1038/NMAT2799
Further information: Forschungszentrum Jülich: http://www.fz-juelich.de/portal/presse/pressemitteilungen Research group at the Institute of Solid State Research, Forschungszentrum Jülich: http://www.fz-juelich.de/iff/d_th1_ng_lezaic_staff Working group at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA: http://www.mrl.ucsb.edu/~nicola/ Working group at Yale University: http://www.yale.edu/physics/research/atomic.shtml Working groups in Prague: http://drupal.fzu.cz/en/department/12 http://cmd.karlov.mff.cuni.cz/kfes/staff/Prokleska.php http://www.geology.cz/portal/page/portal/shared/f/frantisek.laufek
Press contact: Angela Wenzik, science journalist, Institute of Solid State Research, Forschungszentrum Jülich, 52425 Jülich, Germany, tel. +49 2461 61-6048, email: a.wenzik@fz-juelich.de
Forschungszentrum Jülich…
… pursues cutting-edge interdisciplinary research on solving the grand challenges facing society in the fields of health, energy and environment, and information technology. In combination with the two key competencies – physics and supercomputing – work at Jülich concentrates both on long-term, fundamental and multidisciplinary contributions to science and technology, as well as on specific technological applications. With a staff of about 4,400, Jülich – a member of the Helmholtz Association – is one of the largest research centres in Europe.
I like an honest person. Hat's off to ya.
I payed that guy at 7-11 to card you for the liquor.
If the electrons are like a ‘shell’ around the atoms and ions, wouldn’t they be like the ‘shells’ that are the outer layers of our atmosphere?
Or like the Van Allen radiation belt?
*kof*
*kof*
(jeeze)
*kof*
Once in my life have I been carded. And only because I asked him...since I was 14...
U jest, right?
About what?
So... did he buy the liquor for you?
All of the above? (She asks, coyly...)
*snark*
Non, mon brer! Moi was/is capable of buying the liquor for moi...In those days, I could FAKE it! And I did!
What?
Isn’t it past your bedtime?
'Moi' still didn't answer whether he threw her out or not.
If you were 14 and he carded you, did he let you buy (i.e. he bought it), or did he throw you out?
And quit answering a question with a question.
If we both do it, we could end up in an infinite loop.
Know what I mean?
Who have you been talking to, she asks.
And why is my bedtime a subject to be discussed?
Jeeze.
No one EVER threw me out of anyplace that liked my cute face and my big boobs. ;o]
Life sucks. No one has carded me in FOREVER! My boobs were big enough at 14 that no one qestioned me for anything; I had to ask a bartender in Wyoming (Of all places) to PLEASE card me so I could show my ID.
Since 90% confidence isn’t enough, the 10% confidence that it isn’t so will have to do, eh? ;’)
The laymen usually misunderstand how little “90%” is as a confidence level - and some traders with fear masterfully abuse this ignorance. 90% vs 10% is not that “qualitatively” far from 50% vs 50% - and one can transform one to the other by a “slight” pressure in the methodology and the formulae. If you want to be scientifically confident about a conclusion, you should really demand 99.9% or more. And it’s actually not that hard to obtain such stronger evidence assuming that your hypothesis is actually correct and the “signal” exists.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/defending-statistical-methods.html
In particular, discoveries of new particles by colliders do require 5 sigma. No one would have claimed a discovery of a top quark at 3 sigma - which would only be viewed as a suggestive yet vague hint.
Once again, this increase is needed because people often cook their results to make “discovery claims” that are bogus: it’s easy to “improve” the tests. If you try 10 variations of the same test, one of them will show a (fake) effect at a 90% confidence level: that’s what the 90% confidence level means, by definition. Unfortunately, many researchers are approaching the things in this way.
With a 5-sigma discovery, such cheating becomes virtually impossible because you would need a million of variations of your paper - and only one of them would show a fake positive. On the other hand, it’s not “infinitely more difficult” to get 5-sigma results relatively to 3-sigma results. Because the relative errors go like “1/sqrt(N)” where N is the number of events (whose average you’re calculating, in a way), you only need to increase the number of events by a factor of “(5/3)^2 = 2.7778” to go from 3 sigma to 5 sigma.
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