Comments on: Discovering the Quantum Universe

By: Travel, Travel, and More Travel | Cosmic Variance

Travel, Travel, and More Travel | Cosmic Variance — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:51:15 +0000

[...] So, my trip to Kentucky? To give a physics department colloquium on Discovering the Quantum Universe. I enjoy communicating the excitement of my field and the impending scientific revolution we expect at the LHC! [...]

By: Panning for Gold | Cosmic Variance

Panning for Gold | Cosmic Variance — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:51:49 +0000

[...] We are in our 3rd day of the Institute and, speaking from an organizors point of view, all is running smoothly (except for the usual MAC-PC issues). We have an exciting program of lectures and topical talks. We opened with an overview of the physics anticipated at the Terascale, expertly given by Guido Altarelli of CERN. We had two lectures on the most important aspect of the LHC: the accelerator! The LHC accelerator is very complex and let’s face it, without a working accelerator, we can’t do our science. This series was given by Lyn Evans of CERN, who is basically the guy in charge of the LHC accelerator complex. James Stirling of Durham, the guy who literally wrote the book on his lecture topic, beautifully explained the theory behind proton proton collisions. Lance Dixon of SLAC will continue on this topic, outlining the details of higher precision calculations. We have a series of detector talks, introduced by Jos Engelen (deputy director of CERN), where we focus on a specific detector component each day. Michael Peskin of SLAC will discuss the connections between colliders and cosmology. And that’s just the first week! Next week, we will separately explore specific physics topics in depth (Higgs, Supersymmetry, top-quark, extra dimensions, etc), taking a look at both theory and how the signatures will actually be observed in the demanding experimental environment at the LHC. [...]

By: Supersymmetry Closer To Home | Cosmic Variance

Supersymmetry Closer To Home | Cosmic Variance — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 23:46:54 +0000

[...] If Supersymmetry shows up, (we’d need a new experiment -such as the ILC- designed to study the problem once the LHC has shown the way, to be sure about it), we may well have the beginnings of the answers to the Dark Matter problem too, since the unknown form of matter needed in that context may well be a particle required by supersymmetry. [...]

By: Vince

Vince — Thu, 25 May 2006 21:02:32 +0000

Go on…

By: JoAnne

JoAnne — Thu, 25 May 2006 01:47:13 +0000

Vince: I see you are a physics graduate student – I have no idea which field or how advanced. So let me give you my synopsis of the hierarchy problem in fairly technical language.

The global set of precision electroweak data indicates that there is a light Higgs-like object (

By: Vince

Vince — Wed, 24 May 2006 21:02:31 +0000

Why is the hierarchy problem a problem (in the literal sense) in the first place?

By: JoAnne

JoAnne — Wed, 24 May 2006 20:54:40 +0000

Thanks to all who have read the report and enjoyed it! It’s great to get such positive feedback!

By: JoAnne

JoAnne — Wed, 24 May 2006 20:53:19 +0000

Let me just add that string theory does not predict that the LHC will find Supersymmetry or extra dimensions. String theory merely predicts that the two (supersymmetry and x-tra dims) must exist at the string scale (nominally the Planck scale, but could be lower) or below.

However, we have other, more compelling, reasons to believe that supersymmetry or extra dimensions, or something of that ilk does exist at the Terascale and that the LHC will find it. New physics is needed to solve the hierarchy problem.

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 24 May 2006 20:45:11 +0000

Simple, Dick. Lack of evidence just means that the SUSY energy scale is higher than expected. Same for the extra dimensions. See how convenient that is? Oh, and remember: it’s not string theory, it’s magic theory.

By: Dick

Dick — Wed, 24 May 2006 20:14:15 +0000

The LHC will probe that other pitch-black room, the one supposedly containing the twin pitch-black cats of supersymmetry and extra dimensions. Since they don’t exist, it won’t find them. The Higgs is a cat of a different color, and the LHC will probably find it, but there’s a chance that it won’t because the Higgs is not a particle field. (The idea that other particles get mass by bumping into Higgs particles is naÃ¯ve and silly.) In general, scalar fields are structural fields, not particle fields. It will be interesting to see how true believers justify their continuing faith in string theory after the LHC fails to find supersymmetry and extra dimensions.

By: Plato

Plato — Wed, 24 May 2006 17:00:22 +0000

Powers of Ten perhaps then Sean? For the public then.

Many physical quantities span vast ranges of magnitude. Figures 0.1 and 0.2 use images to indicate the range of lengths and times that are of importance in physics.

By: Sean

Sean — Wed, 24 May 2006 14:58:51 +0000

“Particles tell stories” is a great motto, and it gets to the heart of the matter: we’re not in it just to find new particles for their own sakes, but because the particles behave in certain ways that reveal how Nature works.

I’m less convinced about “Terascale” as a user-friendly bit of terminology. “Tera” will indeed have some resonance, but I’m not so sure about “scale,” as people on the street aren’t used to thinking in terms of exploring higher and higher energy scales. But I certainly agree that it’s difficult to convey the importance of understanding TeV-scale physics to non-experts, which is why people so often cheat and talk about the origin of mass etc.

Great job with the report.

By: citrine

citrine — Wed, 24 May 2006 12:51:14 +0000

Great job, JoAnne et al!

I hope that this report will get a lot of publicity via the popular science press. This is a great way for those involved in scientific research to share their work directly with non specialists. I would really like to see some bright kids in junior high and high schools being motivated by this report to pursue Physics in college.

By: Paul Valletta

Paul Valletta — Wed, 24 May 2006 10:10:17 +0000

Very interesting!

This from page 34:Polarized beams at the linear collider could probe such a scenario by detecting differences in the way the two components of the electron behave. Experimenters would then observe deviations in the polarized scattering of electrons, e+e- L,R to e+e-. The attainable level of precision is more than enough to resolve the locations of the two components of the electron. In this way, the linear collider could map the geography of the standard model particles in the extra dimensions. Such a discovery would require the capability of beam polarization, unique to the linear collider.

Where particles live in extra dimensions. The
locations of the two kinds of electron (left- and
right-handed) in an extra dimension could be measured with the polarized beams of the linear collider. In this figure, the horizontal and vertical scales represent distance along the extra dimension, in units of hbar c / 4 TeV 1/20,000th the diameter of a proton).The
red and green curves correspond to estimated
experimental errors of a 0.5 and 1.0 TeV ILC,
respectively. ILC observations would place
particles in one of these two colored regions.
Location of eR in an extra dimension.

Amazing stuff.

By: Amitabha

Amitabha — Wed, 24 May 2006 06:08:31 +0000

I like the name terascale. Perhaps high-energy physics can be renamed terascience? These days nanoscale and nanoscience seem to catch the public imagination quite easily — it would be nice to see terascale gain the same popularity.

By: JoAnne

JoAnne — Wed, 24 May 2006 02:50:48 +0000

Pyracantha, this is a fancy magazine that you can download from the web from the link given above (the link with the words “less technical version”.

By: Pyracantha

Pyracantha — Wed, 24 May 2006 01:55:56 +0000

Is this a paper book or magazine that you can buy? Or is it a video/DVD or a multimedia presentation available for sale?
I get SYMMETRY magazine which is a fancy publication that talks about the same things as that report, but I find the texts hard to read because they are so full of acronyms such as SLAC, BNL, LCLS, ILC, LHC, MIPP, KIPAC, NuMI, PULSE, and CDF..
I know it’s serious science when the acronyms outnumber the words.

By: Zeno

Zeno — Wed, 24 May 2006 00:47:34 +0000

This is delightful news. Congratulations!

It sounds as if the folks at DOE were nice enough not to insist on your saying “theory” every time you mentioned the Big Bang.

By: Travis

Travis — Wed, 24 May 2006 00:06:45 +0000

I really like the pictures used in the report. They have a such a great ‘feeling’ to them. I don’t really know how to describe that. Very exciting!