Collider Detector at Fermilab and Slac

Current evidence shows that neutrinos do oscillate, which indicates that neutrinos do have mass. The Los Alamos data revealed a muon anti-neutrino cross over to an electron neutrino. This type of oscillation is difficult to explain using only the three known types of neutrinos. Therefore, there might be a fourth neutrino, which is currently being called a "sterile" neutrino, which interacts more weakly than the other three neutrinos.

If for one moment you thought strings had some relation to the very nature as "building blocks of this universe," at what "energies" would we have said they had made their appearance? Microseconds perhaps after the universe came into expression?

The CDF Detector. Image from Fermilab

Three trillion times per second--that's how fast quarks in the B sub s (B_s) particle "oscillate," or switch between their matter and antimatter states, according to scientists from the Collider Detector at Fermilab collaboration. The CDF physicists measured this rapid oscillation with the help of the world's most powerful particle accelerator, Fermilab’s Tevatron, unprecedented computing power made available through the Open Science Grid and the LHC Computing Grid, and a healthy dose of ingenuity.

"B_s oscillation is a very subtle and rapid effect," says Jacobo Konigsberg from the University of Florida, co-spokesperson for the CDF collaboration. "It's astonishing that we can measure it at all."

When you look at these events, the cascading effect of this interaction with the earth's upper atmosphere, why did not one think of the constituent properties that would be exhibited at the beginning of that same universe?

Multi-Jet Hadronic Events


Event 12637_6353_600_z_3jet

In some hadronic events, the initial high-energy quark and or antiquark pair may radiate a high-energy gluon before the production of additional quarks and antiquarks in the strong force field is completed. These gluons also show up in the event picture, because they provide a different pattern. The momentum of each high-energy gluon appears as an additional jet of hadrons. This process results in three, four, or even five jet events. Sometimes though, as these pictures show, it is very clear to see.

I do not understand why people did not understand this relation to what was happening within the cosmos, would not be produced in our colliders? That what was happening at the beginning of our universe had some relation to what was being produced in those colliders?

Cosmic Rays


Cosmic rays are caused by protons from outer space. When a proton (shown in yellow) hits the air in the earth's upper atmosphere it produces many particles. Most of these decay or are absorbed in the atmosphere. One type of particle, called muons (shown in red), lives long enough that some reach the earth's surface.

SLAC's Cosmic Ray Detector: The Cosmic Ray Detector consists of three pairs of scintillator panels for muon detection. Sets A, B, and C (see below) are oriented with the flat surface of the panels horizontally, at 45°, and vertically, respectively. In each pair, the panels measure 4.875 inches (12.4 cm) wide by 8 inches (20.3 cm) long, and the distance between them is 18.5 inches (47.0 cm). The panels are shielded from light with aluminum foil, black plastic sheets, and black tape. When muons penetrate through these panels, chemicals within will scintillate (emit flashes of light).