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Archive for the ‘particle physics’ category: Page 228

Apr 2, 2021

CERN Is Betting Big on Exascale

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics

The European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) involves 23 countries, 15000 researchers, billions of dollars a year, and the biggest machine in the world: the Large Hadron Collider. Even with so much organizational and mechanical firepower behind it, though, CERN and the LHC are outgrowing their current computing infrastructure, demanding big shifts in how the world’s biggest physics experiment collects, stores and analyzes its data. At the 2021 EuroHPC Summit Week, Maria Girone, CTO of the CERN openlab, discussed how those shifts will be made.

The answer, of course: HPC.

The Large Hadron Collider – a massive particle accelerator – is capable of collecting data 40 million times per second from each of its 150 million sensors, adding up to a total possible data load of around a petabyte per second. This data describes whether a detector was hit by a particle, and if so, what kind and when.

Apr 2, 2021

Physicists observe new phase in Bose-Einstein condensate of light particles

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

About 10 years ago, researchers at the University of Bonn produced an extreme aggregate photon state, a single “super-photon” made up of many thousands of individual light particles, and presented a completely new light source. The state is called an optical Bose-Einstein condensate and has captivated many physicists ever since, because this exotic world of light particles is home to its very own physical phenomena. Researchers led by Prof. Dr. Martin Weitz, who discovered the super photon, and theoretical physicist Prof. Dr. Johann Kroha now report a new observation: a so-called overdamped phase, a previously unknown phase transition within the optical Bose-Einstein condensate. The study has been published in the journal Science.

The Bose-Einstein is an extreme physical state that usually only occurs at very low temperatures. The particles in this system are no longer distinguishable and are predominantly in the same quantum mechanical state; in other words, they behave like a single giant “superparticle.” The state can therefore be described by a single wave function.

In 2010, researchers led by Martin Weitz succeeded for the first time in creating a Bose-Einstein condensate from particles (photons). Their special system is still in use today: Physicists trap light particles in a resonator made of two curved mirrors spaced just over a micrometer apart that reflect a rapidly reciprocating beam of light. The space is filled with a liquid dye solution, which serves to cool down the photons. The dye molecules “swallow” the photons and then spit them out again, which brings the light particles to the temperature of the dye solution—equivalent to room temperature. The system makes it possible to cool light particles because their natural characteristic is to dissolve when cooled.

Apr 1, 2021

Non-destructive detection could speed up cold-atom quantum sensors

Posted by in categories: particle physics, quantum physics

Researchers use microwaves to observe an atomic sample 30000 times a second without destroying it.

Apr 1, 2021

Artificial Life Forged in a Lab? Scientists Create Synthetic Cell That Grows and Divides Normally

Posted by in category: particle physics

New findings shed light on mechanisms controlling the most basic processes of life.

Five years ago, scientists created a single-celled synthetic organism that, with only 473 genes, was the simplest living cell ever known. However, this bacteria-like organism behaved strangely when growing and dividing, producing cells with wildly different shapes and sizes.

Now, scientists have identified seven genes that can be added to tame the cells’ unruly nature, causing them to neatly divide into uniform orbs. This achievement, a collaboration between the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Center for Bits and Atoms, is described in the journal Cell.

Apr 1, 2021

Particles of a Meteor Explosion From 430,000 Years Ago Found Hidden in Antarctic Ice

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks, particle physics

Approximately 430000 years ago, a meteorite exploded over Antarctica.

The only reason we know about it now is because scientists have just found tiny, once-molten particles of space rock that have been hidden away in the ice ever since.

Based on an analysis of those particles, the event was an unusual one — not quite powerful enough to produce an impact crater, but nor was it a lightweight. The jet of melted and vaporized material that blasted from the mid-air explosion would have been more hazardous than the Tunguska event that flattened a Siberian forest in 1908.

Mar 31, 2021

Frog skin cells turned themselves into living machines

Posted by in category: particle physics

The “xenobots” can swim, navigate tubes, move particles into piles and even heal themselves after injury, a new study reports.

Mar 31, 2021

Study shows promise of quantum computing using factory-made silicon chips

Posted by in categories: computing, particle physics, quantum physics

The qubit is the building block of quantum computing, analogous to the bit in classical computers. To perform error-free calculations, quantum computers of the future are likely to need at least millions of qubits. The latest study, published in the journal PRX Quantum, suggests that these computers could be made with industrial-grade silicon chips using existing manufacturing processes, instead of adopting new manufacturing processes or even newly discovered particles.

For the study, researchers were able to isolate and measure the quantum state of a single electron (the ) in a silicon transistor manufactured using a ‘CMOS’ technology similar to that used to make chips in processors.

Furthermore, the spin of the electron was found to remain stable for a period of up to nine seconds. The next step is to use a similar manufacturing technology to show how an array of qubits can interact to perform quantum logic operations.

Mar 31, 2021

Throwing Nuclear Darts at the Speed of Light: Physicists Flip Particle Accelerator to Gain a Clearer View of Atomic Nuclei

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space

Shooting beams of ions at proton clouds, like throwing nuclear darts at the speed of light, can provide a clearer view of nuclear structure. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT

Shooting beams of ions at proton clouds may help researchers map the inner workings of neutron stars.

Physicists at MIT and elsewhere are blasting beams of ions at clouds of protons —like throwing nuclear darts at the speed of light — to map the structure of an atom ’s nucleus.

Mar 31, 2021

Researchers achieve world’s first manipulation of antimatter

Posted by in categories: engineering, particle physics

:oooooooo.


Researchers with the CERN-based ALPHA collaboration have announced the world’s first laser-based manipulation of antimatter, leveraging a made-in-Canada laser system to cool a sample of antimatter down to near absolute zero. The achievement, detailed in an article published today and featured on the cover of the journal Nature, will significantly alter the landscape of antimatter research and advance the next generation of experiments.

Antimatter is the otherworldly counterpart to matter; it exhibits near-identical characteristics and behaviors but has opposite charge. Because they annihilate upon contact with matter, are exceptionally difficult to create and control in our world and had never before been manipulated with a laser.

Continue reading “Researchers achieve world’s first manipulation of antimatter” »

Mar 31, 2021

Long-awaited muon physics experiment nears moment of truth

Posted by in categories: futurism, particle physics

After a two-decade wait that included a long struggle for funding and a move halfway across a continent, a rebooted experiment on the muon — a particle similar to the electron but heavier and unstable — is about to unveil its results. Physicists have high hopes that its latest measurement of the muon’s magnetism, scheduled to be released on 7 April, will uphold earlier findings that could lead to the discovery of new particles.

The Muon g – 2 experiment, now based at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) in Batavia, Illinois, first ran between 1997 and 2001 at Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island, New York. The original results, announced in 2001 and then finalized in 20061, found that the muon’s magnetic moment — a measure of the magnetic field it generates — is slightly larger than theory predicted. This caused a sensation, and spurred controversy, among physicists. If those results are ultimately confirmed — in next week’s announcement, or by future experiments — they could reveal the existence of new elementary particles and upend fundamental physics. “Everybody’s antsy,” says Aida El-Khadra, a theoretical physicist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.