particle

CERN is working on the Future Circular Collider (FCC), a possible successor to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), with the European Strategy for Particle Physics confirming its scientific value. The FCC would be situated in a 91-kilometer tunnel between France and Switzerland, and a feasibility study has been initiated. The first phase includes a visual inspection, followed by seismic studies and drilling in 2024. Environmental aspects, such as geological characteristics and landscape effects, will be assessed, and the…

Chinese scientists are searching for signs of the world’s most elusive particles. The search has taken these scientists almost a mile beneath the ocean’s surface, where they hope to catch glimpses of these subatomic particles called neutrinos.  Neutrinos are special particles that spend most of their time not interacting with the rest of the world around them. In fact, tens of thousands of neutrinos stream through our planet and our bodies every second, only occasionally interacting with other atoms. When…

Human group sizes can be predicted with methods from physics. Credit: Complexity Science HubThe scientists at Complexity Science Hub (CSH) were able to predict the group sizes of people in a computer game by utilizing the average number of friends each person has. They modeled the formation of social groups using an example from physics, specifically the self-organization of particles with spin.For a long of time, sociologists have been intrigued by the formation of social groups and their underlying mechanisms. They have…

In an unusual move, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has quietly begun a new competition for the contract to run the United States’s sole dedicated particle physics laboratory. Announced in January, the rebid comes 1 year after Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), which is managed in part by the University of Chicago (UChicago), failed an annual DOE performance review and 9 months after it named a new director. DOE would not comment, but observers…

The ghost, at long last, is actually in the machine: For the first time, scientists have created neutrinos in a particle collider.Those abundant yet enigmatic subatomic particles are so removed from the rest of matter that they slide through it like specters, earning them the nickname "ghost particles".The researchers say this work represents the first direct observation of collider neutrinos and will help us to understand how these particles form, what their properties are, and their role in the evolution of the…

Physicists at the University of California, Irvine have made a scientific breakthrough by detecting neutrinos created by a particle collider, which will deepen our understanding of subatomic particles. This could also help with understanding cosmic neutrinos that travel large distances and collide with the Earth. The discovery was made using FASER, a particle detector installed at CERN, which detects particles produced by CERN’s Large Hadron Collider.Discovery promises to help physicists understand nature of universe’s…

In the upcoming graphic novel The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu (Mooncakes), Clementine Chang has landed her dream job: working alongside Doctor Marcella Lin in the Robotics and Engineering Department at the University of Valles Marineris on Mars!  The Infinity Particle. The Infinity Particle is scheduled for publication by Quill Tree Books on August 29th, 2023. Fortunately, you can get your first look at the sensational science fiction story right here below this article, today at The Beat! The Infinity Particle Here’s…

The Standard Model of particle physics is our current best-guess on what the blue-prints for matter looks like. Of all of its predictions, none are as precise as the magnetic moment of the electron.Not only is it precisely predicted, it's among the most accurately measured of any particle's properties. And while these two values are close, they don't overlap entirely, providing tantalizing hints of new physics.Getting closer to the exact value of the electron magnetic moment – simply put, how strongly an electron behaves…

It hasn’t existed since the beginning of time itself, but now scientists have managed to create what they call quark soup. This substance is believed to be the smallest, hottest, and densest state of our universe and the very “soup” that allowed the universe to grow and expand into what we know it as today. The feat was made possible thanks to a powerful yet very complicated particle accelerator. According to research featured in a video by Scientific American, the universe began as a quark soup — the smallest,…

By using one of the most complicated and powerful machines on the planet, scientists have found a way to glimpse back to the very beginning of time itself. This time machine is a particle accelerator, and it gives us a peek at the soup of our newborn universe. Just moments after the Big Bang, our universe was a very different place. It started out so small, dense and hot that the building blocks of our reality atoms couldn't even form. Yet the ingredients of atoms, protons and neutrons were broken down into their most…