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UrduA major hurdle for work at the forefront of fundamental physics is the inability to test cutting-edge theories in a laboratory setting. But a recent discovery opens the door for scientists to see ideas in action that were previously only understood in theory or represented in science fiction.
Tag: Particle Physics
Brookhaven Chemist Minfang Yeh Wins 2021 DPF Instrumentation Award
UPTON, NY—Minfang Yeh, a senior scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, has won the American Physical Society’s 2021 Division of Particles and Fields (DPF) Instrumentation Award. The award honors Yeh’s pioneering work in the development and production of high-performance water-based liquid scintillators for particle physics experiments, including metal loaded scintillators for rare process experiments.
New results from MicroBooNE provide clues to particle physics mystery
New results from a more-than-decade long physics experiment offer insight into unexplained electron-like events found in previous experiments. Results of the MicroBooNE experiment, while not confirming the existence of a proposed new particle, the sterile neutrino, provide a path forward to explore physics beyond the Standard Model, the theory of the fundamental forces of nature and elementary particles.
Antimatter From Laser Pincers
In the depths of space, there are celestial bodies where extreme conditions prevail: Rapidly rotating neutron stars generate super-strong magnetic fields.
New clues to why there’s so little antimatter in the universe
Imagine a dust particle in a storm cloud, and you can get an idea of a neutron’s insignificance compared to the magnitude of the molecule it inhabits.
DOE Invests $93 Million for New Discoveries in High Energy Physics
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $93 million in funding for 71 research projects that will spur new discoveries in High Energy Physics.
Argonne announces 2022 Maria Goeppert Mayer Fellows, honoring the legacy of the physics Nobel Laureate
Argonne’s Maria Goeppert Mayer is one of only four women to win the Nobel Prize in physics. Today, on her 115th birthday, Argonne announces the award of its 2022 Maria Goeppert Mayer Fellowship to four outstanding early-career doctoral scientists.
Basic to Breakthrough: How Exploring the Building Blocks of the Universe Sets the Foundation for Innovation
Particle physics peers into the mysteries of our cosmos while opening the door to future technologies. Research into the Higgs boson, dark energy, and quantum physics reveals insights into the universe and enables innovation in other fields.
Department of Energy Announces $2.85 Million to Support Undergraduate Research Traineeships at HBCUs and other MSIs
Today, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded over $2.85 million with a focus on broadening and diversifying the nuclear and particle physics research communities through research traineeships for undergraduates from Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other Minority Serving Institutions.
Machine Learning System Improves Accelerator Diagnostics
A machine learning system is helping operators resolve routine faults at the Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility (CEBAF). The system monitors the accelerator cavities, where faults can trip off the CEBAF. The system identified which cavities were tripping off about 85% of the time and identified the type of fault about 78% of the time.
SLAC’s Panofsky fellows talk about what makes their research so exciting
Among the many scientists who push the frontiers of knowledge at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the Panofsky fellows stand out.
Precise Measurement of Pions Confirms Understanding of Fundamental Symmetry
Scientific rules about “chiral symmetry” predict the existence of subatomic particles called pions. The lifetime of a neutrally charged pion is tied to breaking of chiral symmetry. Until recently, measurements of this lifetime have been much less precise than calculations from theory. Physicists have now measured a pion’s lifetime more precisely than ever before.
Signs of “Turbulence” in Collisions that Melt Gold Ions
A new analysis of collisions of gold ions shows signs of a “critical point,” a change in the way one form of matter changes into another. The results hint at changes in the type of transition during the shift from particles to the quark-and-gluon “soup” that filled the early universe. This helps scientists understand how particles interact and what holds them together.
A Match Made in … the Cloud
New international partnership between San Diego Supercomputer Center and particle physics powerhouse CERN leverages alliance with Strategic Blue, a UK-based Fintech company that helps organizations optimize procurement of cloud services.
Hologram experts can now create real-life images that move in the air
They may be tiny weapons, but Brigham Young University’s holography research group has figured out how to create lightsabers — green for Yoda and red for Darth Vader, naturally — with actual luminous beams rising from them.
Dan Melconian: Then and Now / 2011 Early Career Award Winner
Dan Melconian is developing new techniques and new equipment to test our current theory of electroweak interactions. Comparison of these precision measurements to theoretical predictions will either confirm the Standard Model to a higher degree or point to a New Standard Model.
Hunting for Sterile Neutrinos with Quantum Sensors
An international team has performed one of the world’s most sensitive laboratory searches for a hypothetical subatomic particle called the “sterile neutrino.” The novel experiment uses radioactive beryllium-7 atoms created at the TRIUMF facility in Canada. The research team then implants these atoms into sensitive superconductors cooled to near absolute-zero.
Supercomputer Calculations May Give First Look at the Structure of Two-Faced Pions
Pions consist of a quark paired to an antiquark and are the lightest particles to experience the strong force. But until recently scientists did not understand pions’ internal structure because of their short lifespan. Now, an advance in supercomputer calculations using lattice Quantum Chromodynamics may allow scientists to provide an accurate and precise description of pion structure for the first time.
Scientists at CERN successfully laser-cool antimatter for the first time
Swansea University physicists, as leading members of the ALPHA collaboration at CERN, have demonstrated laser cooling of antihydrogen atoms for the first time.
Quantum Computing Tackles Calculations of Collisions
A new project at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility will use a quantum simulator to model experiments at the Electron-Ion Collider. This device uses quantum computing to simulate carefully crafted models of experiments that are being proposed for the collider.
How tiny machines become capable of learning
Microswimmers are artificial, self-propelled, microscopic particles.
New result from the LHCb experiment challenges leading theory in physics
Imperial physicists are part of a team that has announced ‘intriguing’ results that potentially cannot be explained by our current laws of nature.
Cost-Effective, Easily Manufactured Ventilators for COVID-19 Patients
Particle physicists are at the forefront for pioneering low-cost, mass-producible ventilators to help address the worldwide shortage. An international, interdisciplinary team spearheaded one such effort and presents the design in Physics of Fluids. The ventilator consists of a gas inlet valve and a gas outlet valve, with controls and alarms to ensure proper monitoring and customizability from patient to patient. The design is built from readily available parts and is presented under an open license.
Lena Funcke Receives Leona Woods Lectureship Award
Lena Funcke, a theoretical physicist who conducts research at the intersection of fundamental particles, the cosmos, and quantum computing, has been named a recipient of the Leona Woods Distinguished Postdoctoral Lectureship Award by the Physics Department at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory.
U.S. Department of Energy Announces $18 Million to Advance Particle Accelerator Technologies and Workforce Training
he U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $18 million in new funding to advance particle accelerator technology, a critical tool for discovery sciences and optimizing the way we treat medical patients, manufacture electronics and clean energy technologies, and defend the nation against security threats.
New IceCube detection proves 60-year-old theory
Normally, electron antineutrino would zip right through the Earth at the speed of light as if it weren’t even there. But this particle just so happened to smash into an electron deep inside the South Pole’s glacial ice, and was caught by the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. This enabled IceCube to make the first ever detection of a Glashow resonance event, a phenomenon predicted 60 years ago by Nobel laureate physicist Sheldon Glashow.
IceCube detection of high-energy particle proves 60-year-old physics theory
With this detection, scientists provided another confirmation of the Standard Model of particle physics. It also further demonstrated the ability of IceCube, which detects nearly massless particles called neutrinos using thousands of sensors embedded in the Antarctic ice, to do fundamental physics. The result was published March 10 in Nature.
Researchers Overcome the Space between Protons and Neutrons to Study the Heart of Matter
Scientists can now study the strong force with a novel method of accessing the space between protons and neutrons within a nucleus. The first direct probes have tested the validity of leading theories that describe the interactions between protons and neutrons in nuclei. This research confirms that current theoretical models describe the behavior of protons and neutrons quite well.
Nature’s funhouse mirror: understanding asymmetry in the proton
The results of a new experiment could shift research of the proton by reviving previously discarded theories of its inner workings.
Researchers Hunt for New Particles in Particle Collider Data
Berkeley Lab researchers participated in a study that used machine learning to scan for new particles in three years of particle-collision data from CERN’s ATLAS detector.
Remote-Working Team to Tame Electron Beams
A major injector upgrade at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility was well underway early last year when the pandemic hit, throwing scientists and their long-anticipated project for a loop. Literally overnight, they had to leave their desks, control room and colleagues behind and rapidly learn how to work together from the confines of their own homes.
Iowa State particle physicists follow the data to Japan’s Belle II experiment
Iowa State high-energy physicists Chunhui Chen, Jim Cochran and Soeren Prell have moved their research from the Large Hadron Collider in Europe to the Belle II experiment in Japan. It’s a chance to search for new physics at the intensity frontier of more and more particle collisions.
A New Era of Accelerator Science
PNNL’s Jan Strube and colleagues from Germany and Japan outline the future of particle physics research using linear colliders, which could improve our understanding of dark matter and help answer fundamental questions about the universe.
Applying Quantum Computing to a Particle Process
A team of researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) used a quantum computer to successfully simulate an aspect of particle collisions that is typically neglected in high-energy physics experiments, such as those that occur at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.
Supercomputers Aid Scientists Studying the Smallest Particles in the Universe
Using the nation’s fastest supercomputer, Summit at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a team of nuclear physicists developed a promising method for measuring quark interactions in hadrons and applied the method to simulations using quarks with close-to-physical masses.
Jefferson Lab Launches Virtual AI Winter School for Physicists
Artificial intelligence is a game-changer in nuclear physics, able to enhance and accelerate fundamental research and analysis by orders of magnitude. DOE’s Jefferson Lab is exploring the expanding synergy between nuclear physics and computer science as it co-hosts together with The Catholic University of America and the University of Maryland a virtual weeklong series of lectures and hands-on exercises Jan. 11-15 for graduate students, postdoctoral researchers and even “absolute beginners.”
Remote Work Suits Jefferson Lab Technical Designer
The COVID-19 pandemic has turned workplaces everywhere upside down, prompting countless brainstorming sessions on how to make work environments safer or whether jobs might be done just as well from home. Jefferson Lab technical designer Mindy Leffel says working from home during the pandemic has been a learning process, but has only motivated her to prove herself.
Machine Learning Improves Particle Accelerator Diagnostics
Operators of Jefferson Lab’s primary particle accelerator are getting a new tool to help them quickly address issues that can prevent it from running smoothly. The machine learning system has passed its first two-week test, correctly identifying glitchy accelerator components and the type of glitches they’re experiencing in near-real-time. An analysis of the results of the first field test of the custom-built machine learning system was recently published in the journal Physical Review Accelerators and Beams.
Righting a wrong, nuclear physicists improve precision of neutrino studies
Led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a new study clears up a discrepancy regarding the biggest contributor of unwanted background signals in specialized detectors of neutrinos.
90 Years of Neutrino Science
Berkeley Lab has a long history of participating in neutrino experiments and discoveries in locations ranging from a site 1.3 miles deep at a nickel mine in Ontario, Canada, to an underground research site near a nuclear power complex northeast of Hong Kong, and a neutrino observatory buried in ice near the South Pole.
Christian Bauer: Then and Now / 2010 Early Career Award Winner
Large data sets require software specifically written to increase precision. Christian Bauer develops that software for new physics discoveries.
Know When to Unfold ’Em: Study Applies Error-Reducing Methods from Particle Physics to Quantum Computing
Borrowing a page from high-energy physics and astronomy textbooks, a team of physicists and computer scientists at Berkeley Lab has successfully adapted and applied a common error-reduction technique to the field of quantum computing.
Timekeeping theory combines quantum clocks and Einstein’s relativity
A phenomenon of quantum mechanics known as superposition can impact timekeeping in high-precision clocks, according to a theoretical study from Dartmouth College, Saint Anselm College and Santa Clara University.
Graduate Student Receives DOE Award to Conduct Research at Jefferson Lab
A graduate student who will work with theorists at Jefferson Lab to better understand subatomic particles has received a supplemental research award from the DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program.
Q&A: How machine learning helps scientists hunt for particles, wrangle floppy proteins and speed discovery
At the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, machine learning is opening new avenues to advance the lab’s unique scientific facilities and research.
American Physical Society Announces Four 2020 Fellows Affiliated with Jefferson Lab
Four researchers who are affiliated with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility have been selected by their professional peers for the distinct honor of Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Scientists achieve higher precision weak force measurement between protons, neutrons
Through a one-of-a-kind experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, nuclear physicists have precisely measured the weak interaction between protons and neutrons. The result quantifies the weak force theory as predicted by the Standard Model of Particle Physics.
Fermilab scientist Vladimir Shiltsev elected to Academia Europaea
Widely recognized for his work in accelerator beam physics, Shiltsev is one of 361 individuals elected to Academia Europaea, which promotes a wider appreciation of the value of European scholarship and research.
New Calculation Refines Comparison of Matter with Antimatter
An international collaboration of theoretical physicists has published a new calculation relevant to the search for an explanation of the predominance of matter over antimatter in our universe. The new calculation gives a more accurate prediction for the likelihood with which kaons decay into a pair of electrically charged pions vs. a pair of neutral pions.
Scientists find new way to measure important beam property
In a new study from Argonne, researchers have measured important beam properties that will help scientists develop more focused beams for high-impact science.