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Matter-Antimatter Split Hints at Physics Breakdown
Scientific American ^ | 4/3/08 | JR Minkel

Posted on 04/05/2008 11:51:18 AM PDT by LibWhacker

What's the matter with antimatter? New data may hold the answer.

Nature may have handed scientists a new clue in a longstanding mystery: how matter beat out antimatter for dominance of the universe. Early data from twin experiments at the Tevatron, the world's reigning particle accelerator at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Ill., suggest an unexpected chink in the hugely successful standard model of particle physics.

The twist comes from odd behavior in a particle called the BS (pronounced "B-sub-S"), which flips back and forth between its matter and antimatter forms three trillions times per second. Researchers believe that such a breakdown, known as CP violation, is required to explain why matter is so abundant.

Researchers say the finding is well worth following up to make sure it is not a random clump in the data, as frequently happens in particle physics experiments. "This is exciting, definitely," says physicist Jacobo Konigsberg of the University of Florida in Gainesville, cospokesperson for CDF, one of two detectors that may have glimpsed the effect.

Antimatter is well-known to science fiction fans as the stuff that explodes on contact with regular particles such as protons and electrons, which have the same mass as their antiparticles but the opposite charge. The hot, early universe contained equal parts matter and antimatter. Yet somehow, as the cosmos cooled, matter was not completely annihilated.

Researchers strongly suspect that the key to this riddle lies in the weak nuclear force, which governs radioactive decay, along with more exotic reactions created in particle accelerators. In nearly all cases, matter obeys something called CP symmetry, which states that a particle ought to behave identically to the mirror image of its antiparticle. Not so when acted on by the weak nuclear force.

The amount of CP violation observed in experiments (and enshrined in the standard model), however, is far too little to explain why matter should have prevailed in its ancient war with antimatter. To get a clean look at CP symmetry, DZero and its sibling detector, CDF, focus on the BS, which consists of a bottom quark and a strange antiquark. (Quarks are components of protons and neutrons.) Working independently, the two detectors both found an extra dose of CP violation beyond what the standard model predicts.

Neither result on its own was very convincing, so a team of Italian researchers combined the data, similar to the way medical researchers cull information from independent clinical trials, to look for rare side effects. Together, the data make it 99.7 percent likely that the discrepancy is real, not due to chance, says physicist Luca Silvestrini of the National Institute for Nuclear Physics in Rome, who took part in the study submitted to Physical Review Letters.

Such analyses require making judgment calls, but Silvestrini says he is confident in the finding. "Everything points in the same direction, and so I think it's rather unlikely this is a statistical fluke," he says. Konigsberg says that if it is a fluke, that should become clear by the end of the summer as the Fermilab teams analyze more data.

Whether the hypothetical CP violation would fully explain matter's dominance over antimatter depends on the new physics that gave rise to it. According to theoretical physicist Robert Fleischer of CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva, Switzerland, the simplest explanation would be a massive, photonlike particle similar to known members of the standard model and capable of interacting directly with bottom quarks and strange antiquarks.

Another possibility is supersymmetry, a proposed standard model extension that gives each known particle a heavier doppelganger, or super-partner. In that case, the BS oscillations could feel indirect effects from different combinations of super-partners, Fleischer says.

He notes that if the effect is real, the Large Hadron Collider, set to become the world's top dog in particle smashers after it goes on line later this year near Geneva, should be able to quickly confirm it and then probe for the underlying particles. "By 2010," he says, "I'm sure we will know the final answer."


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: antimatter; breakdown; cpsymmetry; physics
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1 posted on 04/05/2008 11:51:20 AM PDT by LibWhacker
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To: LibWhacker

Personally, I’m pro-matter.


2 posted on 04/05/2008 11:52:24 AM PDT by John Jorsett (scam never sleeps)
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To: LibWhacker

“The twist comes from odd behavior in a particle called the BS (pronounced “B-sub-S”), which flips back and forth between its matter and antimatter forms three trillions times per second.”

I suspect further research will help us understand the behaviors of politicians. They are controlled by a collection of BS particles.


3 posted on 04/05/2008 11:56:19 AM PDT by cizinec ("I've never heard a corpse ask how it got so cold.")
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To: LibWhacker
This is exciting, definitely

The excitement is detectable, that is, above background.

4 posted on 04/05/2008 11:57:01 AM PDT by RightWhale (Clam down! avoid ataque de nervosa)
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To: LibWhacker

"Fascinating article, Captain."

5 posted on 04/05/2008 12:00:19 PM PDT by SIDENET (Hubba Hubba...)
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To: LibWhacker
supersymmetry, a proposed standard model extension that gives each known particle a heavier doppelganger, or super-partner.


6 posted on 04/05/2008 12:01:04 PM PDT by LibFreeOrDie
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To: LibWhacker

Doesn’t matter......


7 posted on 04/05/2008 12:01:36 PM PDT by Squantos (Be polite. Be professional. But, have a plan to kill everyone you meet.©)
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To: LibWhacker

Or, maybe every black hole in the universe is a trace of some advanced civilization that started playing with a loaded Hadron collider.


8 posted on 04/05/2008 12:05:09 PM PDT by 668 - Neighbor of the Beast (And how 'bout that mortgage bailout? Are you getting off the hook? Or on?)
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To: LibWhacker

I’m going to put my money on supersymmetry rather than the single large particle. Well, an antimatter nickle, anyway.


9 posted on 04/05/2008 12:05:33 PM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature, not nurture™)
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To: LibWhacker

If I new for sure the super collider would destroy the universe when they fire it up , I would go finance a new boat .


10 posted on 04/05/2008 12:07:25 PM PDT by kbennkc (For those who have fought for it , freedom has a flavor the protected will never know)
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To: Squantos

Have you ever considered that something may be the “MATTER” with you? You used to be pretty “SOLID!” But now you are just emmitting “GAS”


11 posted on 04/05/2008 12:07:30 PM PDT by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: LibWhacker
"...a particle called the BS (pronounced "B-sub-S"), which flips back and forth between its matter and antimatter forms three trillions times per second."

Soon to be designated "the John Kerry particle".

12 posted on 04/05/2008 12:08:49 PM PDT by Hunton Peck (I'm supporting Michele Bachmann and James Sensebrenner this year. The presidency is just one office.)
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To: 668 - Neighbor of the Beast

Every black hole is a trace of every advanced civilzation that became totally liberal and perished.


13 posted on 04/05/2008 12:08:57 PM PDT by DarthVader (Liberal Democrats are the party of EVIL whose time of judgement has come.)
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To: SIDENET

14 posted on 04/05/2008 12:10:36 PM PDT by SShultz460 (If peace is the answer; it must be a stupid question.)
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To: LibFreeOrDie
Post #6

Wonder woman is off her diet again.

15 posted on 04/05/2008 12:11:08 PM PDT by chainsaw ( No black racist Muslims in the WH.)
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To: cizinec

LOL excellent


16 posted on 04/05/2008 12:15:32 PM PDT by wastedyears (The US Military is what goes Bump in the night.)
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To: chainsaw

Count the weapons. Take all the time you need.


17 posted on 04/05/2008 12:16:52 PM PDT by savedbygrace (SECURE THE BORDERS FIRST (I'M YELLING ON PURPOSE))
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To: LibWhacker
Captain we have a problem with the anti-matter containment field.


18 posted on 04/05/2008 12:16:59 PM PDT by ElkGroveDan (When you choose the lesser of two evils, you still have evil.)
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To: LibWhacker
Nature may have handed scientists a new clue in a longstanding mystery: how matter beat out antimatter for dominance of the universe.

Antimatter would have won if they had counted Florida and Michigan.

19 posted on 04/05/2008 12:17:18 PM PDT by GreenHornet
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To: LibWhacker

Cleary, what we need to do is increase the Buck Rogers noises and put more science stuff around!


20 posted on 04/05/2008 12:18:03 PM PDT by Jagman (Liberalism is a "progressive" disease)
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