Physicists at CERN have sent a ping-pong ball around the Large Hadron Collider in order to test for defects. However, this is no ordinary ping-pong ball, it is ultra-clean, smaller than regulation size and fitted with a radio transmitter. This so called radio-frequency ball was used to test that the connections between the magnets are free from any defects.
One of the detectors from the CDMS.
Researchers at the Super Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) facility have recently uploaded a paper in which they announce that they have found three events that lie in the signal range of a Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMPs). Continue Reading
This morning physicists at CERN have finally announced that they have found a new boson with a significance of 5.0 sigma which is required to claim a discovery. Both the CMS and ATLAS detectors agree with the finding of a new boson with a mass of around 125.5 GeV and is consistent with the standard model. However, this is just the beginning, much more data is needed to find out more about its properties.
Due to this new discovery CERN has now decided to delay the LHC’s planned two year shutdown by 3 months. The planned shutdown aims to upgrade the LHC so it can reach 14 TeV.
So the Higgs has finally been found however, there is still no sign of supersymetry, which was tipped to be discovered before the Higgs.
Find out more on CERN’s homepage: http://public.web.cern.ch/public/
Also catch the live press conference here: http://webcast.web.cern.ch/webcast/
Tomorrow morning , in a packed auditorium in CERN, the physicists will be revealing the latest update on the hunt for the Higgs boson, sometimes referred to as the ‘god’ particle. This could be the most anticipated moment in the history of modern science. The Higgs is the last particle of the standard model yet to be found, without it the standard model, the most successful theory in particle physics, falls apart. The idea of the Higgs boson was first introduced around 50 years ago to shore up the holes in the standard model and solve the long-standing mystery of why particles have mass and why some have more than others.
Deep in the south of France the foundations are being layed for a machine that will hold an artificial star here on earth and harness its energy. It is called ITER and it is an experimental reactor that aims to prove that fusion is a commercially viable option for solving the world’s energy crisis. Fusion is set to revolutionise the world we live in with sustainable, green and safe energy.
An event showing four muons (red tracks) from a proton-proton collision in ATLAS. This event is consistent with two Z particles decaying into two muons each.
In a seminar held at CERN on the 13 December 2011, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented the status of their searches for the Standard Model Higgs boson. Their results are based on the analysis of considerably more data than those presented at the summer conferences, sufficient to make significant progress in the search for the Higgs boson, but not enough to make any conclusive statement on the existence or non-existence of the elusive Higgs. The main conclusion is that the Standard Model Higgs boson, if it exists, is most likely to have a mass constrained to the range 116-130 GeV by the ATLAS experiment, and 115-127 GeV by CMS. Tantalising hints have been seen by both experiments in this mass region, but these are not yet strong enough to claim a discovery.
KM3Net logo
The hunt for elusive neutrinos will soon get its largest and most powerful tool yet: the enormous KM3NeT telescope, currently under development by a consortium of 40 institutions from ten European countries. Once completed KM3NeT will be the second-largest structure ever made by humans, after the Great Wall of China, and taller than the Burj Khalifa in Dubai… but submerged beneath 3,200 feet of ocean!
The Rose
News in Physics New Scientist Feed Physics Forum