It required, for example, a type of symmetry within the masses of a few fundamental particles involved with electroweak force. Over the decades, it successfully predicted the discoveries of several new particles. Called the Standard Model, this theory added up thousands of other theories and experiments in particle physics to establish a new set of the basic building blocks of matter. Gordon entered the field in 1970, as the first Higgs experiments were being visualized, while at the same time a new theory to unify all of physics was being formed. Yet with the revelation of a new Higgslike particle, the future of the LHC-and in turn high-energy particle physics-is yet to be decided.įirst, however, Gordon and the other LHC scientists must figure out what exactly they've discovered-a challenge heralding a contagious sense of excitement within the physics community that's hardly been seen since the era in which the Higgs theory was founded. The near-term goal for the LHC is 14 TeV, still 26 TeV short of the SSC design. The following year, the machine was back online and successfully smashing protons together and this year set a record for the highest energy ever achieved in accelerating particles: 8 TeV (or 5.3 trillion times the power of a normal flashlight battery). CERN fired the first protons around the 17-mile LHC ring in 2008-immediately an electrical short destroyed many of its superconducting magnets in a sudden and tragic malfunction. Once the world's most powerful accelerator, it shut down last year.įilling the void left by the SSC was the LHC, where Gordon helped design and build one of the sensitive particle detectors. The third was the Tevatron at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) near Chicago, Illinois. The second particle accelerator, the Superconducting Super Collider (SSC) slated for Texas, didn't pass the first phase of construction before its inflating budget was cut. "Isabelle," the particle collider where Gordon first hoped to search for the Higgs, was partially built at BNL. "So there is something about the Higgs field that couples stronger to high masses."įor Gordon, the search for the Higgs boson has been an uphill climb full of fits and starts. More people notice him," says AAAS fellow Howard Gordon, a physicist at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL). "The more famous he is, the more mass he acquires as he goes through the room. And perhaps things we don't so easily see, like dark matter, dark energy and exotic particles yet to be discovered. The Higgs field gives mass to the quarks and gluons-the tiniest known particles-that bind together to create atoms, matter, life and all the things humans see in the universe. With Higgs' added mass, he grows bigger and finds a connection to other rock stars in the Higgs field. He gains the increasing weight of a celebrity, while others zip through the room, avoiding the slightest nudge. ![]() Here, particles are traveling unhindered in every direction at nearly the speed of light until they run into a big slowdown-when Higgs the rock star loses his speed in the throng of admirers.Īs more scientists and reporters in the room notice him, more gather around Higgs. With this analogy, imagine that Higgs, at the moment before entering the crowd, is floating in space 400,000 years after the Big Bang. To explain his complex theory, scientists often refer to the Higgs particle as a rock star moving through a room packed with adoring fans. He received a standing ovation for his life's work. A scientist who helped establish the theory nearly 50 years ago and who lent his name to the mechanism, Higgs is an 83-year-old celebrity of the high-energy physics community. ![]() On the day of this announcement, Peter Higgs entered the auditorium at the CERN laboratory. In early July, the answer may have come with the discovery of a particle resembling the theoretical Higgs boson, as found in data collected at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland. What gives particles mass? For more than half a century physicists have had this enormous question on their minds. An event reconstruction of the Higgs boson particle.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |