Another Nail in the Coffin for the Standard Model?

Summary: Data from the LHC's last run is still being analysed and with this comes possible new data to suggest faults in the standard model. Researchers at University of Maryland are studying leptons, subatomic particles that help to make up our universe. While studying the decay rate, they observed that not all particles decayed at the same rate as they should. Something was influencing the process.

What this mysterious force is, we do not know, but it is not predicted to exist in the standard model. This experiment is building on another experiment of their that also seemed to contradict the standard model. So it is not an instrumental error. Whatever it is, I am excited to find out.


RT
University of Maryland

New particle seen at CERN

Summary: Nearly lost amid all the Pluto excitement, scientists at CERN have possibly discovered a new particle called the pentaquark. This new particle has been theorized to exist since the 60s and many have claimed to discover it before so they are being cautious. However, if this is indeed what is seems to be, then we have a new form of matter.

The pentaquark is a particle composed of four quarks and one antiquark.

Scientists found the particle by studying the way that the particle Lambda b decayed into three other particles. Some of the intermediary stages only made sense if the pentaquark did exist. Although still cautious about declaring this to be the pentaquark, the technology available to researchers at CERN allows them to view the problem in five dimensions rather than just one.

If this is indeed the particle they think it is, it will provide us with new ways of imagining quarks to be arranged and matter to be composed. Matter may be more complex than we thought.


BBC News

10 Facts about Antimatter

Summary: Remember when this blog started and I tried to keep it focused solely on antimatter? That turned out to be too specific but I am once again able to get back to the heart of this blog. While not and advancement in antimatter studies, this is a recent article on ten facts you may not have known about antimatter. Contained within the article are helpful links to more topics related to antimatter that can quench your thirst for knowledge. Enjoy.

SymmetryMag

LHC is Up and Running

Summary: After the scheduled two year shutdown and update of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, the LHC is back and ready for even higher energy collisions. It began smashing particles again Easter Sunday at energies of 450 GeV. Amazingly enough, this is a lower energy and will be used for calibrations before the truly record breaking energies of 7,000 GeV starting on June 1st.


BBC News

Update: Test collisions have broken the energy record already at 13 TeV.

BBC News

Two New Particles

Summary: You read that correctly. Amid all the excitement about the comet landing, researchers at CERN have detected two new particles with the LHCb experiment. These particles were predicted to exist by the quark model but had never been observed. And now we are pleased to introduce yo to Xi_b' and Xi_b*. Super exciting names I know but maybe they will become fancier in the future.
Both of these particles contain one beauty quark, one strange quark, and one down quark. They are more than six times as massive as the proton. They have different spins (a weird quantum mechanical property that describes their angular momentum).

So this is super exciting, because finding more proof for your theories is always good. And now I am off to find out why I have never heard of a beauty quark before. UPDATE: Apparently it is another name for the bottom quark.


Symmetry Mag

Nobel Prize for Higgs discovery

Summary: By now you have probably heard that the Nobel Prize was awarded to Doctors Higgs and Englert for the correct prediction of the existence of a particle to explain mass. While the two of them will split the prize money, it is painfully obvious that this would have been impossible to confirm without the help from thousands of other scientists who will get nothing. Aside, from of course the pride and recognition within the science community which is nothing to scoff at.
I think one of the most adorable things is that Professor Higgs didn't know he had won until a woman congratulated him on the street. He was also very humble when acknowledging not only the experimentalists who proved it, but the other theorists who had reached the conclusion at the same time as him and helped to make it better.



BBC News
New York Times 1 (about the Nobel Prize)
New York Times 2 (Opinion piece on the Nobel prize only going to two theorists)

Curiosity and other updates

Summary: Curiosity has discovered that most of Mars's atmosphere has since departed into space. Scientists discovered this by looking at the chemical of argon. Argon reacts with very little so the only way the lighter isotopes will have given way to a majority of the heavier isotopes is by escaping into outer space. The article does not comment on what this means when trying to determine whether or not Mars ever had flowing water other than to say that scientists are still split.


BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22063337


Summary: The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) in the sky has made some observations that may give additional evidence to dark matter. Stay tuned.

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22016504


Summary: The LHC is being upgraded so that is can find new particles. Not too much info at this moment.


BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21941666

Physics and Literature

Summary: Although physics and literature are not often mixed, there are places where these topics overlap. One physicist at CERN, JJ Gomez, has been overlapping these two interests.
He has previously written a story on his experience working at CERN and a book concerning the issues of potential energy sources. He is considering writing a new book focusing on nuclear energy. Right now, however, he is working on a book aimed at young adults. He hopes to introduce physics topics without all the complex facts. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with. Since he is a fan of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, I have high hopes for his book.

His previous works:
Book of short stories: La agonía de las libélulas (Agony of the dragonflies)
Materia Extraña
El ecologista nuclear (The Nuclear Environmentalist, now published in English)



CERN Courier: http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/52360

Another puzzle piece in the Standard Model

Summary: Scientists have now detected D-mesons (a very small and elusive particle) oscillating between matter and antimatter. Weird, but super cool. This was predicted to occur since the other mesons have already been proven to exhibit this weird behavior. Furthermore, this evidence crosses the "five-sigma" level of statistical certainty that is needed to declare it an actual discovery.



BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21594357

Wonders of Life

If any of you are interested in cool science programs, BBC just began a new series called "Wonders of Life" hosted by Prof. Brian Cox. Even if you are not a biology person, I encourage you to check it out since the host is a particle physicist at CERN. Because of this he continues to sneak in astronomy and physics.

You can find the first three episodes on the BBC iPlayer website.

LHC Shut down

Summary: The LHC has begun its two year shut down for repairs. But don't panic! They still have plenty of data to sort through.



BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21421460
CERN Courier: http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/52361

Wishy-washy Higgs

Summary: The inconsistencies and weird things in the data that lead scientists to announce the discovery of a new particle back in July, curiously still remain. It seems to be a difference in measurement that makes the difference.

There have also been hints of other weird science occurring that frankly does not make much sense to me, but something about particles flattening and gaining gluons as they reach the speed of light, possibly being observed.

Either way, next week the LHC will shift into a new phase before being shut down for upgrading at the beginning of 2013. Not to worry though, they still have tons of data to analyze.


NewScientist
Higgs:http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn23003-higgs-boson-having-an-identity-crisis.html
flat particles: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn22556-lhc-sees-hint-of-highspeed-particle-pancake.html

Decay

Summary: Students and scientists at CERN have completed their zombie movie! After three long years of working on it you can watch it at the link below. The premise is that some engineers were down in the tunnels of the LHC when some radiation leaked and turned them into zombies. Now the remaining members must figure out what caused it before they are also dead meat.
To mock Hollywood's atrocious science, they too purposefully made ludicrous claims, only in this case, the actors (also students) kept trying to fix the errors and had to be reminded that it was wrong on purpose.
 I'll update this post after I watch it with a spoiler-free review.



Decay-trailer: http://youtu.be/luNueXoAw3I
Decay-full movie: http://youtu.be/n-NwLUPZWZc

Another blow struck at the Standard Model

Summary: The scientists at the LHCb have observed a Bs meson decay into three muons, a decay possibility that is extremely rare. This puts a hole in the Supersymmetry model which attempts to explain some if the inconsistencies in the standard model. As usual, this is not conclusive evidence, but it seems to indicate that our universe is more complicated than a standard model can predict.



BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20300100

Next Antimatter experiment

Summary: In this video, scientists at CERN talk about their next big thing, ALPHA 2, and the challenges involved with building a new experiment.

Link: http://youtu.be/pqI9vv4Vfv8

New particle found, possible Higgs

Summary: Scientists at CERN have announced the discovery of what seems to be a new particle. They do not know if it is the Higgs Boson, though it is in the right area, and they don't have a high enough degree of certainty to call it a formal discovery. However it is close enough to yield celebration all over the physics community. BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18702455 Symmetry Mag: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2012/07/04/search-for-higgs-boson-at-large-hadron-collider-reveals-new-particle/ Video of press conference: cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1459604 Follow CERN on twitter for all the latest updates.

LHC is back on air!

Summary:

The LHC has reopened with higher energies (4TeV per beam) and scientists look forward to 
renewing the search for the Higgs and continuing on to new physics. 

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17625123 

CERNTV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQfUFi9Gy3Y

C, the speed limit

The Icarus collaboration has proven that neutrinos do not violate the speed of light.

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17364682

CERN Press release: http://press.web.cern.ch/press/PressReleases/Releases2011/PR19.11E.html

Symmetry Magazine: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2012/03/16/new-neutrino-measurement-finds-particles-obeying-speed-limit/

Antimatter under a microscope?

Scientists at CERN are extremely close to being able to look at an atom of anti hydrogen under a microscope.

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17284822

New data from the Tev

After sifting through more data from the Tevatron, there are hints of a particle between 115 and 135 GeV with a certainty of 2.2 sigma. (Not enough to call it a discovery.) The LHC has found a suggestive "bump" as well at the same mass even though the experiments conducted to get the data were extremely different.

BBC News: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17269647
Quantum Diaries: http://www.quantumdiaries.org/2012/03/07/the-higgs-boson-won%E2%80%99t-be-playing-hide-and-seek-much-longer/

Symmetry Magazine: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2012/03/07/tevatron-experiments-see-possible-signs-of-the-higgs-boson-in-favored-region/