Particle Physics – Slugger O'Toole

LHC: “we have observed a new particle consistent with a Higgs boson. But which one?”

Pete Baker on July 4, 2012, 4:31 pm

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That’s what they’ll be trying to work out over the next few years. Matt Strassler’s probably the man to go to for more on the options ahead. But, for now, the news from Cern is that they have, almost certainly, found “that damned elusive particle“, a Higgs boson. Earlier this morning one of the six theoreticians who predicted the field/boson, Peter Higgs, instructed his family to start chilling the champagne, and Stephen Hawking has conceded that he has lost his …

LHC: “2012 looks set to be a vintage year for particle physics”

Pete Baker on April 5, 2012, 3:10 pm

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As the BBC reports, the Large Hadron Collider [LHC] at Cern is back with stable beams of protons after its winter break, and at a new record collision energy of 8 trillion electron volts. From the BBC report Running the LHC at higher energies makes it more likely that Higgs particles, if they exist, will show themselves in the debris of the proton collisions. “The increase in energy is all about maximising the discovery potential of the LHC,” said Cern Research …

“We are completely compatible with the speed of light that we learn at school”

Pete Baker on March 16, 2012, 8:58 pm

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Jim “I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV” Al-Khalili can probably put the ketchup down now. The somewhat excitable BBC science report notes that the Icarus group at the Gran Sasso underground laboratory in Italy have published the results of a new experiment testing the speed of neutrinos. And guess what? They’re not faster-than-light. [They never were! – Ed] Indeed. From the BBC science report The Icarus experiment uses 600 tonnes – 430,000 litres – of liquid argon to detect the …

Faster-than-light neutrinos? Not so fast…

Pete Baker on February 23, 2012, 6:25 pm

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The Telegraph’s Tom Chivers might be a little premature with his “I told you so“, but the reality is that theoretical physicist Jim “I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV” Al-Khalili can probably put the ketchup down. As the historically “somewhat excited” BBC report, “Faster-than-light neutrinos could be down to bad wiring“. Needless to say, the situation is a little bit more complicated than the BBC headline suggests… As the Guardian report notes Late on Wednesday night, scientists at the Opera …

LHC: “Evidence soon emerged however that this particular squib might be of the damp variety…”

Pete Baker on December 13, 2011, 4:37 pm

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After the hype, “somewhat excited” reporters are straining to sound convincing – the Guardian live-blogged the presentation. And Matt Strassler was at the circus in CERN. I have been chatting with my colleagues, all particle physicists working at or visiting CERN, and finding out how many say that the evidence presented today convinces them that the Higgs has been found. So far — Experimentalists — No: 9, Maybe: 1, and a good one; will explain shortly. Yes: 1 (Tomaso Dorigo, of …

“Maybe Picasso did not paint any pictures at all, at least not the Mona Lisa.”

Pete Baker on December 4, 2011, 3:52 pm

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As the Guardian’s Ian Sample notes from the science desk The runup to Christmas looks exciting for the Large Hadron Collider at Cern near Geneva. Staff at the laboratory have arranged a special seminar on Tuesday 13 December at which the latest results in the search for the Higgs boson will be made public. The presentation is due to happen directly after the lab’s scientific policy committee has convened one of its regular meetings behind closed doors. So what can we …

Faster-than-light neutrinos? “Hold on to that ketchup for now”

Pete Baker on November 24, 2011, 4:49 pm

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If you’ve been confused by recent reports of the on again/off again ‘faster-than-light’ neutrinos Professor Matt Strassler explains, in relatively straight-forward terms, why neither the updated OPERA experiment, nor the findings from ICARUS, really changes the situation. For now. And as theoretical physicist Jim “I will eat my boxer shorts on live TV” Al-Khalili says at Comment is Free The point is that Icarus no more proves Einstein right than Opera proves him wrong. Both results are experimental measurements, not discoveries. A proper test …

Now for the science bit…

Pete Baker on September 8, 2011, 6:06 pm

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Quantum field theorist Professor Matt Strassler, whom I mentioned previously and who’s been spending a few days at the Perimeter Institute, takes issue with the science in this BBC science report of “hints” of dark matter in his latest post. Meanwhile, a bit more insight into the CRESST dark matter situation (see yesterday’s post). There have already been silly press articles. The BBC article says Researchers at the Cresst experiment in Italy say they have spotted 67 events in their detectors that may be …

Have they found that elusive goddamn particle?

Pete Baker on July 23, 2011, 8:22 pm

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Well, maybe… As was the case with Tevatron’s false alarm, it’s far too soon to say that the search for “that damned elusive [Higgs] particle” is over. But there is a difference this time. I thought something was up when I read the Guardian’s tame particle physicist Jon Butterworth’s post on Thursday. I’m writing this on the plane home from CERN. I would have loved to post more about ATLAS preparations for the European Physical Society meeting in Grenoble, but …

Tevatron’s false alarm

Pete Baker on June 11, 2011, 3:40 pm

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As the BBC reports, independent checks on a separate experiment at Fermilab’s Tevatron accelerator have found no evidence of “a completely new, unanticipated particle” the BBC had previously reported researchers had said they had found “compelling hints of”. And, therefore, no signal of “a new fundamental force of nature, and the most radical change in physics for decades.” Which means Jon Butterworth was right to be sceptical [and his money’s safe! – Ed] Indeed. I did say that BBC report was …

Dr Neil Tyson’s “disturbing” thought for the day

Pete Baker on May 25, 2011, 2:53 pm

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The Guardian’s tame particle physicist, Jon Butterworth, is “playing truant” from the LHC at Cern to attend the Boost 2011 meeting at Princeton. But he’s left a link-tastic post on the results so far. Meanwhile, the Big G’s GrrlScientist points to director of the Hayden Planetarium, New York, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, explaining one of his “disturbing thoughts”. As an aside, the paper, “The Origin of Chemical Elements”, was published in the 1 April 1948 issue of the Physical Review. The …

Endeavour’s Final Voyage – Redux

Pete Baker on May 16, 2011, 1:22 pm

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The scheduled April launch was scrubbed due to technical problems, but the final preparations are underway for the 25th and final launch, after 19 years in service, of the Space Shuttle Endeavour on Mission STS-134. Launch is scheduled for 1.56pm [BST]. Via the NASAKennedy channel And a reminder that Endeavour’s final cargo, for the International Space Station, includes a 7-tonne particle physics experiment – the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). And the AMS channel provides this informative Nasa overview of the experiment. As usual, there’s the launch blog …

Endeavour’s Final Voyage

Pete Baker on April 29, 2011, 4:51 pm

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Following the final flight of Discovery, the next Nasa Space Shuttle to be retired, after 19 years of service, will be Endeavour. But first there’s the not insignificant matter of its 25th, and final, flight – Mission STS-134. Lift-off is scheduled for 1547 local time (1947 GMT; 2047 BST) from the Kennedy Space Centre. And via the NASAKennedy channel Endeavour’s final cargo, for the International Space Station, includes a 7-tonne particle physics experiment – the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS). And the AMS channel …

Tevatron: “My money is on the false alarm at the moment”

Pete Baker on April 9, 2011, 6:11 pm

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A somewhat excited BBC report of potentially ground-breaking interim results from Cern LHC rival accelerator, Tevatron, is undermined by the statistical possibility of a false alarm. The Guardian’s tame particle physicist, at Cern, Jon Butterworth explains. If the histograms and data are exactly right, the paper quotes a one-in-ten-thousand (0.0001) chance that this bump is a fluke. That’s pretty small; although bear in mind that lots of distributions like this get plotted. If you plot 100 different distributions, the chances become about …

LHC: “if nature is kind to us and the lightest supersymmetric particle, or the Higgs boson, is within reach…”

Pete Baker on February 1, 2011, 2:09 pm

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The Large Hadron Collider at Cern had been scheduled to take a year-long break at the end of 2011, before returning at full power, 7 TeV per beam, in 2012/13. But, as the Guardian’s tame particle physicist Jon Butterworth notes, a new schedule has been announced. From Jon Butterworth The LHC will run through 2011 and 2012, rather than shutting down for more than a year at the end of 2011 as previously planned. This is great news for those of …

“a hot, dense soup of quarks and gluons.”

Pete Baker on November 7, 2010, 7:37 pm

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As the BBC noted, the Large Hadron Collider at Cern has switched from firing beams of protons to beams of heavy [lead] ions. From the BBC report One of the scientists who will be taking a part in the experiment is David Evans from the University of Birmingham, UK. “Although the tiny fireballs will only exist for a fleeting moment (less than a trillionth of a trillionth of a second) the temperatures will reach over ten trillion degrees, a million times hotter than …

“that damned elusive particle…”

Pete Baker on July 24, 2010, 4:07 pm

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Earlier this week there was unfounded speculation that the Tevatron particle collider at Fermilab had already discovered the Higgs boson. But if their funding is continued, and it probably will be, they could still take that particular prize ahead of the Large Hadron Collider at Cern. Understandably in the circumstances, all scientific eyes have been on the International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP) in Paris this weekend. The Guardian’s Science Blog’s Jon Butterworth is there In the final session of the …