CERN Large Hadron Collider Archives

While physicists can state that to an extent we can understand the way things work in the universe, everything changes when we turn our gaze to subatomic laws. Recently, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) found at CERN in Switzerland may have just discovered a new particle that changes even the little we knew about the state of affairs at subatomic level.

So far, the particle in question is far from confirmed, and researchers need to run extensive testing in order to do so. If, however, the particle will be confirmed, it would probably mean that scientists need to recreate an entirely new standard model to use in order to truly understand the workings of our universe.

The current standard model represents a series of theories that scientists have iterated regarding everything we know – or like to believe we know when in fact it’s mostly theorizing based on mathematical models – about subatomic level physics. However, change any of the parameters that the standard model works according to, and we would see our knowledge crumbling. And there are already certain principles of nature itself that still baffle us.

And that constitutes one of the most limiting flaws of the standard model too. For example, despite superhuman efforts to explain the most fundamental force in our universe, the gravity, the elusive particles that scientists have named gravitons have yet to be discovered. The theory that researchers have applied within the standard model works fine and seems to be accurate, except it does not account for gravity whatsoever.

The particle that was discovered at the LHC has been named B meson and behaved in ways entirely different to what was expected by scientists before they set out to study it. According to previous research based on data gathered between 2011 and 2012, B meson should decay at certain frequencies and angles. Instead, running the practical tests at the particle collider did not go according to what the researchers had predicted. Neither the frequencies nor the angles were right during decay, as they varied a whole lot more than previously expected.

The B meson is a particle that is made of a bottom antiquark and an up, down, strange or charm quark. Displaying unusually short lifespans, this particle is vital for understanding and studying quantum chromodynamics. Scientists believe that by studying how far off the standard model these particles can go, they can set limits on new particles and maybe gather a better understanding of how the subatomic universe works.

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The Large Hadron Collider, or for short LHC, has been restarted after a 2 year hiatus, and is ready to go deep into new physics.

In 2012, scientists discovered the Higgs Boson, called The God Particle by the mainstream media, and it was one of the greatest things to be discovered in the past decade. Scientists are hopeful that now, after upgrading the LHC and spending $150 million, they will meddle with new physics and they will soon find out if Higgs Boson has relatives – distant cousins more likely.

Restarting the LHC after a 2 year hiatus doesn’t mean that it will start smashing particles. Scientists will need to re-calibrate each and every single instrument – ” It will take us about six weeks to two months to establish the first stable collisions for the experiments, because we have to commission all the instruments, all the systems one by one.” – Joerg Wenninger, coordinator of LHC operations.

Besides researching dark matter, scientists are hoping to prove, or disprove, the new so-called theory – Supersymmetry – it basically says that every particle has a partner particle.

If proven to be correct, this theory can fix major issues with the Standard Model – more exactly fixing the mass of the Higgs Boson. Supersymmetry can also explain how dark matter works, its mass, and how its linked to everything.

The Higgs Boson was thought to be the last missing particle to fill up the Standard Model, but with this new theory, questions have been raised on actually how many particles are there?

A scientist that is involved with the CERN LHC, Tara Shears from the University of Liverpool, has said that – “Of course in every particle physics experiment we’ve ever done, we’ve been wanting to make a big, unknown discovery, but now it’s become particularly pressing, because with Run One and the discovery of the Higgs, we’ve discovered everything that our existing theory predicts.”

So it’s safe to say that we will most likely enter a new era filled with scientific theories that will baffle our minds.

The Large Hadron Collider, commonly known as LHC, was built between 1998 and 2008 by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, and it is the world’s largest, and most powerful particle collider machine to ever be built. Spanning 27 km, or 17 miles, in circumference, and as deep as 175 metres, or 574 feet, it is also the world’s longest machine.

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The Particle That Could Turn Everything We Know Around

CERN LHC up and running after 2 year hiatus

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