French physicist Bernard d’Espagnat has won the annual Templeton Prize with its purse of $1.4 million; the prize is often given to scientists who find common ground between religion and science. Professor d’Espagnat, 87, worked with great luminaries of quantum physics but went on to address the philosophical questions that the field poses [BBC News].
Physicists may be more open to seeing a higher power behind the great mysteries of the universe than scientists in other disciplines: Including Dr. d’Espagnat, five of the past 10 Templeton winners have been physicists or have had strong connections to the discipline [The Christian Science Monitor].
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Particle physicists have ruled out one of the possible remaining hiding places of the Higgs boson, bringing them one step closer to finding the slippery subatomic particle–or, conceivably, to ruling out its existence.
Physicists believe that the Higgs particle interacts with some other particles, like the W and Z bosons, to give them mass. The standard quip about the Higgs is that it is the “God Particle” — it is everywhere but remains frustratingly elusive. Confirming the Higgs would fill a huge gap in the so-called Standard Model, the theory that summarizes our present knowledge of particles [AFP].
The new results, from the Tevatron particle accelerator at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, narrow down the range of masses where the Higgs boson may be found. Physicist Craig Blocker explains that particle accelerators smash particles together and then sift through the debris produced, looking for particles with certain masses. Previous collider experiments had placed a lower bound of 114 giga-electron volts (GeV), a measure that can be used for particle mass, on the Higgs, and theoretical calculations require it to be less than 185 GeV. The new Fermilab results, from its Tevatron collider, rule out a Higgs mass between 160 and 170 GeV…. “If the Higgs had a mass in this fairly narrow range” of 160 to 170 GeV, he says, “we should have seen it, we had a good chance to see it” [Scientific American].
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After all the excitement and anticipation surrounding the Large Hadron Collider‘s launch last September, its first few months have been an anticlimactic cascade of disappointments. When a fault shut down the subatomic particle collider just nine days after the first beam of protons whizzed around its 17-mile track, officials at first said it would take several weeks to repair. Then they revised that estimate, saying it wouldn’t be fixed until spring of 2009–and then that changed to summer of 2009. Now, officials say that repairs won’t be finished before September, at the earliest.
To appease impatient high-energy physicists, the laboratory will probably run the machine (albeit at reduced powers) for a ten-month stretch from November until the autumn of 2010 [Nature News]. Officials at CERN, the European agency that runs the collider, hadn’t planned to run it through the winters when electricity costs are higher; they estimate that this appeasement will cost them an extra $10.5 million for electricity.
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Researchers have accomplished teleportation, though not of the “Beam me up, Scotty” variety. Instead, they sent information between two individual atoms of the element ytterbium, which were suspended in separate containers three feet apart. Because the quantum information instantly hops from one atom to the other without ever crossing the space between the two, scientists call the transfer “teleportation” [Science News].
Over the years, teleportation experiments have demonstrated that quantum states – for example, the spin of a particle or the polarization of a photon – can be teleported using a variety of methods. But the researchers behind the latest experiment … claim that this is the first time information has been teleported between two separate atoms in unconnected enclosures [MSNBC]. Researchers say that atoms are a better bet than photons for storing quantum information because they’re easier to hold on to, and say that their system could one day be harnessed for spy-proof communication using quantum cryptography, or for powerful quantum computers.
The befuddling process of quantum teleportation is made possible by the what Einstein called the “spooky” properties of quantum materials. Until it’s measured, an atom or photon can remain in an ambiguous state of all possible values simultaneously. Whenever a particle is measured, though, this range of possibilities “collapses” into a single, distinct value. The original, uncommitted state is lost, and it’s this ability to hold multiple values at once that gives [quantum materials] such potential for high-performance computing [Science News].
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By harnessing a quantum mechanic force of repulsion researchers have caused nanoparticles to repel each other, and in their next experiment they plan to levitate a tiny gold nanosphere. The quantum force is part of the Casimir effect, first predicted in 1948 by the Dutch physicist Hendrik Casimir, which describes both the attraction and repulsion that occur between two tiny objects held close together in a vacuum. While the attractive force has previously been demonstrated, the new experiment marks the first time the repulsive force has been seen in a lab.
But the experiment wasn’t just a neat physics trick; the researchers say the repulsive force may one day be used in nanoscale devices. Lead author Jeremy Munday says the research may lend itself to producing ultrasensitive detectors and almost friction-free devices by separating their components via Casimir repulsion. “Where you would normally have friction,” he says, “you can start to greatly reduce that by having a repulsive interaction that doesn’t let the surfaces come into contact” [Scientific American].
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As the year 2008 draws to a close, the world’s timekeepers are giving us a little extra time to wrap up loose ends: They’re giving us one extra second, to be precise. The “leap second” must be added to keep atomic clocks ticking along in time to the planet’s rotation. So at precisely 23:59:60 at Greenwich, England, on New Year’s Eve, there will be a one-second void before the onset of midnight and the start of the New Year…. By the time the transition from 2008 to 2009 arrives in North America the Leap Second will have already been inserted into the world’s timescale [SPACE.com].
The adjustment is necessary because we have two different ways of measuring time. Traditionally, humankind has reckoned time by the spin of the Earth and its orbit around the sun. Under this astronomical arrangement, a second is one-86,400th of our planet’s daily rotation. But because of tidal friction and other natural phenomena, that rotation is slowing down by about two-thousandths of a second a day. Since the 1950s, however, atomic clocks — which are based on the unwavering motions of cesium atoms — have made it possible to measure time far more accurately, to within a billionth of a second a day [The New York Times]. To keep the two measurement systems in alignment, the atomic clocks have to add an extra second about every 500 days.
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The standard model of physics got it right when it predicted where the mass of ordinary matter comes from, according to a massive new computational effort. Particle physics explains that the bulk of atoms is made up of protons and neutrons, which are themselves composed of smaller particles known as quarks, which in turn are bound by gluons. The odd thing is this: the mass of gluons is zero and the mass of quarks [accounts for] only five percent. Where, therefore, is the missing 95 percent? [AFP]
The answer, according to theory, is that the energy from the interactions between quarks and gluons accounts for the excess mass (because as Einstein‘s famous E=mc² equation proved, energy and mass are equivalent). Gluons are the carriers of the strong nuclear force that binds three quarks together to form one proton or neutron; these gluons are constantly popping into existence and disappearing again. The energy of these vacuum fluctuations has to be included in the total mass of the proton and neutron [New Scientist]. The new study finally crunched the numbers on how much energy is created in these fluctuations and confirmed the theory, but it took a supercomputer over a year to do so.
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An enormous helium balloon floating about 24 miles above Antarctica has detected a mix of high-energy electrons so exotic that researchers say the particles must have been created by some fascinating process: They may have been formed when dark matter particles collided and annihilated each other, or else a surprisingly close astronomical object like a pulsar could be spitting the electrons at Earth.
Researchers can’t yet determine which answer is correct, but say the dark matter explanation is more exciting. Dark matter is one of astrophysics’ greatest enigmas. It is thought to be five times more common than visible matter, but there is no proof of what it is made of. The existence of dark matter has largely been inferred from its gravitational effects, such as the fact that most galaxies have enough mass to remain as well-defined objects despite having too little visible matter to account for the necessary gravity [National Geographic News]. If the research balloon did detect the signature of dark matter through the particles left over from collisions, it would be the closest researchers have ever gotten to seeing the mysterious stuff.
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Fixing the glitches that shut down the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in September will apparently be no easy task: A spokesman for the particle physics lab CERN has announced that the repairs will cost $21 million and will probably not be completed until late June. Cern spokesman James Gillies said: “If we can do it sooner, all well and good. But I think we can do it realistically (in) early summer” [BBC News].
The startup of the LHC on September 10th may win an award for anticlimax of the year: Physicists talked for months about the mysteries of physics that the particle collider would reveal, while nervous laypeople worried that when engineers flipped the switch on the machine it would create a miniature black hole that could destroy the earth. But instead of either of these scenarios coming true, the LHC broke within two weeks before getting a chance to perform any experiments.
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Strange things are afoot at the Tevatron particle collider at Fermilab, and the aging U.S. particle smasher is getting an unexpected moment in the spotlight while physicists wait for the repairs of the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland. Researchers say experiments at the Tevatron have produced particles that they are unable to explain using the standard model of physics, and say it’s possible that they’ve detected a previously unknown particle. If the result does turn out to be due to some unexpected new process, it would be the most significant discovery in particle physics for decades [Physics World].
Bloggers and theorists are already lining up explanations that involve unseen particles, hypothetical strings, or modifications of conventional physics. The finding is so controversial that about one-third of the 600-person experiment that detected it are refusing to put their names on the 69-page paper purporting its discovery [Nature News], which was posted in advance of publication on the server arXiv.
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Peeling a roll of ordinary sticky tape can generate 100 milliwatt pulses of X-rays, enough to capture a human finger on X-ray film, according to a new study by UCLA scientists. They claim to have found the cheapest way to produce X-rays of that scale. “At some point we were a little bit scared,” says Juan Escobar, a member of the research team. But he and his co-workers soon realized that the X-rays were only emitted when the kit was used in a vacuum [Nature News].
Their kit consisted of a vacuum-enclosed machine, reminiscent of a video casette player, that peeled a roll of Photo Safe 3M Scotch tape at a rate of 3 cm per second. Rapid pulses of X-rays, each about a billionth of a second long, emerged from very close to where the tape was coming off the roll. That’s where electrons jumped from the roll to the sticky underside of the tape that was being pulled away, a journey of about two-thousandths of an inch, Escobar said. When those electrons struck the sticky side they slowed down, and that slowing made them emit X-rays [AP]. This type of energy release is known as triboluminescence — the same principle behind the fun trick of crunching on Wint-O-Green Live Savers to produce blue sparks.
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Encryption systems that rely on the “spooky” properties of quantum mechanics have long been hyped as the ultimate in spy- and hack-proof communication, and recently governments and large companies have begun sampling early examples of the technology. Now, scientists in Vienna have demonstrated a commercial telecommunications network protected by quantum cryptography, and say the system could be generally available in less than 10 years.
One of the researchers who worked out the basic idea behind quantum cryptography 25 years ago, Gilles Brassard, was on hand in Vienna to explain the mechanism. “All quantum security schemes are based on the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, on the fact that you cannot measure quantum information without disturbing it,” he explained. “Because of that, one can have a communications channel between two users on which it’s impossible to eavesdrop without creating a disturbance. An eavesdropper would create a mark on it. That was the key idea” [BBC News].
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Three scientists who probed the mysteries of particle physics have been awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced today. The winners are Yoichiro Nambu, a Tokyo-born American citizen, and Makoto Kobayashi and Toshihide Maskawa of Japan. Nambu identified a mechanism called spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics. Kobayashi and Maskawa work predicted the existence of three families of elementary particles known as quarks. According to the Standard Model of particle physics, quarks are the sub-units of protons and neutrons, which together make up the nuclei of atoms [BBC News].
“Spontaneous broken symmetry conceals nature’s order under an apparently jumbled surface,” the academy said in its citation. “Nambu’s theories permeate the standard model of elementary particle physics. The model unifies the smallest building blocks of all matter and three of nature’s four forces in one single theory.” Kobayashi and Maskawa “explained broken symmetry within the framework of the standard model but required that the model be extended to three families of quarks” [AP].
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The accident that brought the Large Hadron Collider‘s particle-smashing experiments to a screeching halt on Friday will keep the collider out of action until spring 2009, officials at CERN announced today. A preliminary inquiry has revealed that it will take two months to fix the problem and restore operating conditions, and the LHC was already scheduled to shut down in the winter to reduce electrical costs.
Says CERN spokesman James Gillies: “We are not going to be done with this before the winter shutdown, so there will be no more beam in the LHC this year…. The winter shutdown will go according to schedule, which means that we start up the accelerator complex in the spring months” [AP].
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The vaunted Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experienced a significant setback this morning, when temperatures in one sector of the particle collider began to rise, and a ton of liquid helium escaped into one area of the collider’s 17-mile tunnel. The mishap follows a previous glitch that occurred one day after the LHC’s opening and delayed operations for about a week, but this new incident appears to be more serious and could take several weeks to resolve.
The LHC smashes subatomic particles together by send protons whizzing through its circular tunnel to collide at certain points; the beams of protons are kept on track by over 1,600 massive magnets that must be kept at temperature near zero on the Kelvin scale. The incident was what is known as a “quench”, in which the temperature of superconducting magnets that are normally chilled to 1.9C above absolute zero started to rise. It caused the temperature of many of the 200 or so magnets in the affected sector to soar by as much as 100C, which would normally take about two weeks to be cooled again [The Times]. The LHC’s operating organization, known as CERN, hasn’t yet revealed the cause of the incident.
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