--------- #1306 - Electron Volts in the Large Hadron Collider
- When the Universe first formed it was composed of a hot, dense, plasma of charged particles. It was so hot that these ionized particles popped in and out of existence, constantly. To recreate this condition today particle physics is trying to accelerate and smash charged particles together in Mammoth Colliders. Today the CERN Large Hadron Collider is smashing a stream of protons and an opposite rotating stream of anti-protons together. Both streams are traveling nearly the speed of light. The energies created exceed 14,000,000,000,000 electron volts. At these high energies it is hoped that some of these primordial particles will be recreated. And, hopefully, more about how our Universe was created in the Big Bang.
- It is strange to believe that astronomers need answers from particle physicists in order to answer their questions about Dark Matter that forms the galaxies and galaxy clusters, or, Dark Energy that is the force responsible for expanding the Universe at an accelerating rate. The answers they get from particle physics is about what happened a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. They start with a billionth of a second to extrapolate out to 13,750,000,000 years.
- In the Large Hadron Collider the proton /anti-proton streams circle the 16.7 mile tunnel in a vacuum tube at speeds that complete the trip 11,245 times each second. The vacuum in the tube is the best on Earth and equivalent to the vacuum out in space 600 miles above the Earth. When the protons collide a debris of sub-particles spray away from the collision. Detectors collect the data on the trajectories of these sub-particles and computers filter the data for study. There are 9,000 scientists from 85 countries pouring over this data in the hopes of discovering new particles. An enormous amount of data is collected every second that takes months or even years to evaluate. Computers collecting terabytes of data use specialized software to separate wheat from chaff that is blasting from this fire hose.
- When particles collide other particles / anti-particle pairs are produced. These pairs either annihilate each other in a flash of Gamma Rays, or, they individually decay into other particles that are less massive. Energies , i.e. mass, always seeks the lowest level. After the collisions the highest energy particles produced have lifetimes as short as 10^-24 seconds. Physics can not detect these short-lived first particles directly, they are just too fast. Physicists rely on detecting the secondary particles created when the heavier particles decay.
- Physicists can detect the trajectories of electrons, muons, and photons then they have to work backwards to figure out the primary particles that generated the secondary particles. The particle detectors reside inside giant super cooled magnets. Charged particles flying away from the collisions are bent in their trajectories by the powerful magnetic fields. These super cooled magnets draw 6 megawatts of power requiring 20,500 amperes of current. There are 9,000 of these magnets cooled down to 1.9 degrees Kelvin. Outer space is warmer, it is 2.735 degrees Kelvin.
- To create the proton collisions there are 2,808 bunches of protons and anti-protons traveling around the collider in opposite directions. When the two streams cross-paths inside the detectors over 200 billion protons get involved in the collisions. At near light speeds the protons are traveling there are 40,000,000 crossings every second. The resulting collisions emit 100 billion particles every second. That amounts to a lot of data to keep track of.
- The energy of the proton beam is 360,000,000 joules. This energy is equivalent to a 400 ton high speed train traveling around the track at 93 miles per hour.
- One of the particles most sought after is the Higgs Boson. A boson is a force carrying particle like the photon that carries the electromagnetic force, or, the gluon that carries the strong nuclear force. The Higgs is a boson that carries the force resulting in mass. The Higgs creates the mass found in all the other particles. Theoretically the Higgs will decay into 4 electrons, or 4 muons, or 2 electrons and 2 muons, or a pair of bottom quarks , or something even more complicated that we do not expect. Obviously, this is part of the reason we have not discovered the Higgs yet. We are still uncertain where exactly to look.
- The trick is to look with a lot of power. In particle physics the energy is expressed in electron volts. 1 electron volt is the energy to move one electron through 1 volt of potential energy. It is a very small amount of energy. 1 electron volt = 1.6 * 10^-19 joules. An electron in a TV cathode ray tube is 20,000 electron volts.
--------------- radio wave radiation < 0.0012 electron volts
--------------- light waves = 2 electron volts
--------------- gamma rays > 12,300 electron volts.
- The human eye is most sensitive to detecting 2.23 electron volts, the color yellow. The electrostatic potential repelling two protons in close proximity is 600,000 electron volts. The electrostatic potential between a proton and an electron in a hydrogen atom is 27 electron volts.
--------------- chemistry ----------- 1 electron volt
-------------- nuclear physics ------------1,000,000 electron volts
------------- particle physics ------------- 1,000,000,000 electron volts
------------- CERN’s Collider ------------14,000,000,000,000 electron volts.
- An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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