Particle Physics Discussion by Sean Carroll, Matt Strassler and Alan Boyle

New Science Internet Radio with Virtually Speaking Science on BlogTalkRadio

Alan Boyle, Matt Strassler & Sean Carroll • Why the Higgs Particle Matters

See:

• Wednesday: Sean Carroll & I Interviewed Again by Alan Boyle

• The Guardian’s Level-Headed Article on Fukushima

Fermi's Now Deeper Study of the High-Energy Cosmos

This compilation summarizes the wide range of science from the first five years of NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Fermi is a NASA observatory designed to reveal the high-energy universe in never-before-seen detail. Launched in 2008, Fermi continues to give astronomers a unique tool for exploring high-energy processes associated with solar flares, spinning neutron stars, outbursts from black holes, exploding stars, supernova remnants and energetic particles to gain insight into how the universe works.NASA | Fermi at Five Years

The Crab Nebula, created by a supernova seen nearly a thousand years ago, is one of the sky's most famous "star wrecks." For decades, most astronomers have regarded it as the steadiest beacon at X-ray energies, but data from orbiting observatories show unexpected variations. Since 2008, it has faded by 7 percent, activity likely tied to the environment around its central neutron star. (Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)

Quantum Computing and Evolution?

The unique capability of quantum mechanics to evolve alternative possibilities in parallel is appealing and over the years a number of quantum algorithms have been developed offering great computational benefits. Systems coupled to the environment lose quantum coherence quickly and realization of schemes based on unitarity might be impossible. Recent discovery of room temperature quantum coherence in light harvesting complexes opens up new possibilities to borrow concepts from biology to use quantum effects for computational purposes. While it has been conjectured that light harvesting complexes such as the Fenna-Matthews-Olson (FMO) complex in the green sulfur bacteria performs an efficient quantum search similar to the quantum Grover's algorithm the analogy has yet to be established. See: Evolutionary Design in Biological Quantum Computing

The Bloch sphere is a representation of a qubit, the fundamental building block of quantum computers.

Quantum Light Harvesting Hints at Entirely New Form of Computing

See:

• Landauer's principle
• Thanksgiving 
• Irreversibility and Heat Generation in the Computing Process

Swarm

ESA's magnetic field mission Swarm. A European Space Agency mission to investigate the Earth's magnetic field in unprecedented detail is due to be launched later this year. Without our planets protective magnetic field, life on our planet would struggle to survive. The Swarm mission consisting of three identical satellites will be used to study all aspects of the Earth's magnetic field and assess whether it is weakening. This report outlines the science of the mission and includes interviews with a project scientist and project manager. More backgroud information can be found on: http://www.esa.int/esaLP/ESA3QZJE43D_LPswarm_0.html

 

Swarm is a European Space Agency (ESA) mission to study the Earth's magnetic field. High-precision and high-resolution measurements of the strength, direction and variations of the Earth's magnetic field, complemented by precise navigation, accelerometer and electric field measurements, will provide data essential for modelling the geomagnetic field and its interaction with other physical aspects of the Earth system. The results will offer a unique view of the inside of the Earth from space, enabling the composition and processes of the interior to be studied in detail and increase our knowledge of atmospheric processes and ocean circulation patterns that affect climate and weather.

The Internet

What is the Future of the Internet

I plug into the electrical plugin and receive all my information stored on the information grid.

There is evolving aspect with which communication is being used, bought and directed as to how this information is contained? How Governments seek to control? How Companies would value our access too?

So this is a another question for others as well to consider this future. Maye you have an opinion. Maybe there are people involved in helping to constraint government with full control?

 Spying, Censorship Threaten Democracy, Web's Inventor Says

If information is to be considered a resource, then how shall we deal with it if it is marginalized toward how much energy we use?

A Universe on the Other Side

 "I think people thought that the universe was smaller, yet discoveries in the last century have found there are black holes everywhere, billions of black holes in our universe and each may produce a universe on the other side, like an infinite tree," he said. - See more at: New Hit Film ‘Gravity’ Speaks to Our Endless Fascination with Deep Space - See more at: http://www.noodls.com/view/6061E5510....3rrRV6eS.dpuf

Just to help here given a platform with which to consider,  the question of," Dr. Poplawski from the University of New Haven, Connecticut, concluded that each time a black hole forms, a new universe could form within it."

One is always looking for evidence of such things. The very contention of black hole itself has to have had a basis with which to consider. So we may say these black holes are real.

While the subject provides many things to consider how does Dr. Poplawski provide evidence for such a statement of universe within universe?

If you look at closely at align perspectives with which to examine this it may help to look at how one is perceiving the idea of the universe? For cosmology they may say that in a coordinated system there is no before or after, just what exists as is? So any notion of what came before this universe or what is to come after is hard pill to swallow.



For some of us it is not a problem. For me then the idea is that in local regions of the universe, information is crunched in order to be dissipated in the larger universe. This supplies the motivation for expansion, and at the same time the evolving nature of the universe has to have more black holes in order to summat the existence of any cosmological constant that is to be considered positive?

The question of entropy,  as it existed in the early universe? How does this figure into the ability for any new universe to form? You are confronted with the notion of a symmetry existing in the early universe for the nature of entropy to follow the path it is today? How could any universe have existed as a fundamental reality of the current universe?

BEFORE THE BIG BANG: AN OUTRAGEOUS NEW PERSPECTIVE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR PARTICLE PHYSICS

For example.

In 2010, Penrose and Vahe Gurzadyan published a preprint of a paper claiming that observations of the cosmic microwave background made by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the BOOMERanG experiment showed concentric anomalies which were consistent with the CCC hypothesis, with a low probability of the null hypothesis that the observations in question were caused by chance.[5] However, the statistical significance of the claimed detection has since been questioned. Three groups have independently attempted to reproduce these results, but found that the detection of the concentric anomalies was not statistically significant, in the sense that such circles would appear in a proper Gaussian simulation of the anisotropy in the CMB data.[6][7][8]

The reason for the disagreement was tracked down to an issue of how to construct the simulations that are used to determine the significance: The three independent attempts to repeat the analysis all used simulations based on the standard Lambda-CDM model, while Penrose and Gurzadyan used an undocumented non-standard approach.[9]Conformal cyclic cosmology

So for some who hold entropy as a subjective examination of the reality with which we live now,  how can one exist as a viewer of the larger universe that contains all these other universe being respective of the arrow of time??
 
Can disorder precede order as a question of what came first as to the existence of the universe? The chicken or egg question. The idea then that the overarching principle here is an arrow of time, such hypothesis to consider needs a factor with which to consider such expansion being supported by some factors given to what can exist as a fundamental reality in those local regions of the universe.

A Jet in the Milky Way

Composite image of Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way.

Image Credit: 

X-ray: NASA/CXC/UCLA/Z. Li et al; Radio: NRAO/VLA

Astronomers have long sought strong evidence that Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*), the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, is producing a jet of high-energy particles. Finally they have found it, in new results from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope.

Previous studies, using a variety of telescopes, suggested there was a jet, but these reports -- including the orientation of the suspected jets -- often contradicted each other and were not considered definitive.

"For decades astronomers have looked for a jet associated with the Milky Way's black hole. Our new observations make the strongest case yet for such a jet," said Zhiyuan Li of Nanjing University in China, lead author of a study appearing in an upcoming edition of The Astrophysical Journal and available online now. See: NASA's Chandra Helps Confirm Evidence of Jet in Milky Way's Black Hole

See Also: Evidence for A Parsec-scale Jet from The Galactic Center Black Hole: Interaction with Local Gas

Muon Detection

An image of the shadow of the Moon in muons as produced by the 700m subterranean Soudan 2 detector in the Soudan Mine in Minnesota. The shadow is the result of approximately 120 muons missing from a total of 33 million detected in Soudan 2 over its 10 years of operation. The cross denotes the actual location of the Moon. The shadow of the Moon is slightly offset from this location because cosmic rays are electrically charged particles and were slightly deflected by the Earth's magnetic field on their journey to the upper atmosphere. The shadow is produced due to the shielding effect the Moon has on galactic and cosmic rays, which stream in from all directions. The cosmic rays normally strike atoms high in the upper atmosphere, producing showers of muons and other short lived particles.

Just an update here while looking at Sean Carroll's blog post article, entitled," Scientists Confirm Existence of Moon." While we understand the need for confirmation of the existence of things, seeing how our perception is used in order to make such a statement,  is a statement of such a measure then as to what is real.

 We report on the observation of a significant deficit of cosmic rays from the direction of the Moon with the IceCube detector. The study of this "Moon shadow" is used to characterize the angular resolution and absolute pointing capabilities of the detector. The detection is based on data taken in two periods before the completion of the detector: between April 2008 and May 2009, when IceCube operated in a partial configuration with 40 detector strings deployed in the South Pole ice, and between May 2009 and May 2010 when the detector operated with 59 strings. Using two independent analysis methods, the Moon shadow has been observed to high significance (> 6 sigma) in both detector configurations. The observed location of the shadow center is within 0.2 degrees of its expected position when geomagnetic deflection effects are taken into account. This measurement validates the directional reconstruction capabilities of IceCube. See: Observation of the cosmic-ray shadow of the Moon with IceCube,

So I have spent some time here looking at how this measure is used in term sof such clarifications and this to me is an exciting off shoot of what particle research has done for us. The skies the limit then as to our use of such a measure then is seen and understood in the post written by Sean Carroll.

The Third Dimension of Cassiopeia A

There are certain advancements when one sees in a geometrical sense as to understand the Supernova in all it's glory. So there are many materialistic things with which we can identify as to the course and direction with regard to it's evolution.

Image credit: NASA/CXC/SAO

One of the most famous objects in the sky - the Cassiopeia A supernova remnant - will be on display like never before, thanks to NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and a new project from the Smithsonian Institution. A new three-dimensional (3D) viewer, being unveiled this week, will allow users to interact with many one-of-a-kind objects from the Smithsonian as part of a large-scale effort to digitize many of the Institutions objects and artifacts.

Scientists have combined data from Chandra, NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, and ground-based facilities to construct a unique 3D model of the 300-year old remains of a stellar explosion that blew a massive star apart, sending the stellar debris rushing into space at millions of miles per hour. The collaboration with this new Smithsonian 3D project will allow the astronomical data collected on Cassiopeia A, or Cas A for short, to be featured and highlighted in an open-access program -- a major innovation in digital technologies with public, education, and research-based impacts. See: Exploring the Third Dimension of Cassiopeia A

See Also:

Cassiopeia A: Exploring the Third Dimension of Cassiopeia A

The value of non-Euclidean geometry lies in its ability to liberate us from preconceived ideas in preparation for the time when exploration of physical laws might demand some geometry other than the Euclidean. Bernhard Riemann

The concept of dimension is not restricted to physical objects. High-dimensional spaces occur in mathematics and the sciences for many reasons, frequently as configuration spaces such as in Lagrangian or Hamiltonian mechanics; these are abstract spaces, independent of the physical space we live in.

More on Spherical Cows

Hubble Heritage Project

Of course I am always drawn toward the reason for why the universe does certain things and I greatly appreciate how a scientist might explain this to me in the most simplest form, which leaves no doubts. But I do not think they can do that without explaining the basis of the reasoning but through symbolic representation in the form of an approximate.

Scientists strive to discover simple rules which underlie complex natural phenomena. For example, when making a model of some complex object a scientist may make some pretty extreme assumptions. For example, when asked to find the force of gravity produced by a complicated object like a galaxy, astronomers will usually start by assuming that it acts like a sphere, which in this and many other cases allows one to make approximate first solutions to complicated problems.

This tendancy to simplify gave rise to the joke of a science professor who begins a lecture, "Consider a spherical cow..." Since Wisconsin is well known to have a large population of dairy cows, it is not too surprising that the University of Wisconsin astronomers and astrophyscists selected this picture of a spherical cow made by Ingrid Kallick as their symbol for a recent national meeting of astronomers in Madison. Hubble Heritage Gallery Page

So herein lies the framework with which I had already envisioned so that I may understand the evolution of the Supernova as to ascertain what drove it to become what it is today in the universe.That evolution leaves it's tale in the history of our universe, and together,  with other local regions to me are contributors to what said the universe must expand all together in it's own way.

There’s absolutely no reason why a non-scientist shouldn’t be able to follow why dark energy makes the universe accelerate, given just a bit of willingness to think about it. Dark energy is persistent, which imparts a constant impulse to the expansion of the universe, which makes galaxies accelerate away. See: Why Does Dark Energy Make the Universe Accelerate?

So the issuance of a contributor would make it so much easier to suggest that what we do not see in the form of dark energy, yet, can be explained particle wise as to suggest it operates within a certain parameter of energies? For any continued expansion to exist, the derivative of that evolution spherically approximated too should be described by some correlation? To suggest the fluid nature is calming to me.:)

See Also:

• Spherical Cows
• Spherical Cows and their X-ray Sources

Energy Flow Without Impedance

It has always been of interest to me how one could get energy to flow quite freely without it succumb too the impurities that may have blocked that flow. I mean the correlation in my mind and being the layman that I am, could in itself demonstrate how my noise provided for the ability of someone not to seeing,  so as to just bungle up the message.

The development of superconductors that could be used in real-world applications, particularly power transmission, could transform the U.S. energy landscape. In addition to huge cost-savings, the higher capacity enabled by superconducting cables would help overcome urban power bottlenecks in today’s power grid, reducing the potential for blackouts and other power interruptions. It would also improve the cost-effective control of power flowing across the national grid and extend the operating life of existing high-load power lines. Furthermore, zero-loss transmission would enable the transfer of solar energy generated in parts of the U.S. where sunlight is most abundant to those where it is not, thus making other energy-saving technologies more practical and affordable. Complex Materials Unusual properties may lead to new superconductors

So I paragraph more those whose words who are not mine to see how the issues around that flow may be considered.. I must say a blog spot piece from Scientific American had got me thinking.

Photo Credit: “Superconducting wires by epitaxial grown on SSIFFS at Oak Ridge National Laboratory” taken on July 29, 2009 by the U.S. Department of Energy

 Photo Friday: Superconducting wires for long-distance electricity transmission By Melissa C. Lott

So to me I am always looking for processes that make energy flow in such a way, as to be correlated in the cosmos. I am looking for ways that energy can travel through and be described as cosmic particle collisions and subsequent, cosmic spallations that demonstrate the list of the ways in which this energy is being accounted for.

So it is important that the views we may of held in regard to how we see energy leak into unaccountability  had its day,  so as to see the current status of what is no longer counted as the missing energy any more.

Later studies and the investigation of much larger data samples have concluded that the event could not be ascribed to new physics but rather to some odd coincidence of detector effects and rare, but known, standard model processes. The Event From Another World

So what is left for me is this nagging feeling about what is explained as processes we do not quite understand and what we have always herald it as some inexplicable description of an unknown process. Herein,  it still remains a mystery and if you can move forward and make clearer the understanding of these processes in particle examinations then how much clear the impedance that such a mystery brings to our examination of the science behind these energy flows?

Of course these are materialistic version of ones grasp of the realities of things in the objective sense, but there is always more we can correlate in mind that we would have found such processes as similar in their expressions? So yes analogies also have to be most certainly clear as to those demonstrations as well.

Sleep Deprivation?

See: Why Do We Sleep
 

(HD) Dark Matter & Dark Energy in the Universe - Full Documentary

See:(HD) Dark Matter & Dark Energy in the Universe - Full Documentary

The Xenon Dark Matter Project

Model of the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search which translates actual data into sound and light. We have not yet had a dark matter interaction, but we have lots of particles hitting the detectors and that is what you are watching. A downloadable version is at my webpage http://www.hep.umn.edu/~prisca More info on our experiment can be found at http://cdms.berkeley.edu and http://www.soudan.umn.edu

There is current data that deals with this topic that has been transformed in how we look at this issue.  I leave that up to viewers to think about all the other bloggers that have already spoken to this. I wll give one link below for consideration.

See:

• Breaking News: Two Great New Measurements

Analogies Make You Think

See:

Falling into a Blackhole- On Sept. 25, four theoretical physicists — Raphael Bousso (U.C. Berkeley), Juan Maldacena (Institute for Advanced Study), Joseph Polchinski (U.C. Santa Barbara) and Leonard Susskind (Stanford University) — answered your questions about the latest theories about what happens when matter falls into a black hole and how these ideas are prompting researchers to reconsider our understanding of gravity.

See Also:

• Metaphors and analogies: scientists’ friends or foes?

Gravity The Movie and the Expanse of Space

Went and saw the movie yesterday. I must say it had a crazy effect on me seeing the movie in 3d.

It seem to capture some of my fears about having lost some constraint on how one is attach to the matters with which we are held bound. The grasping continuously,  of trying to grab onto and hold too, as if the need exists for all humanity to be grounded.

Effectively as a participant once fully engaged, it showed me a glimpse into the future, one way or another, of being involved in the process. While being to old to ever consider such a process now in space exploration, if there is a future life,  I have already glimpsed it,  and seen some of the work I was going to do.

Wishful thinking on my part perhaps, but equally real that the fear of being lost in space, ever so real as to the understanding of what we may call home to many of us. It is as fragile to realize that what we call home here on earth could have ever lost such bounds as to what we all remain attached too. In that moment of realization perhaps to see all around, us, as no longer being held to Earth as the mass between us somehow looses it gravitational hold.

You must forgive me for my layman pondering. How is it that we can change this gravitational connect between the masses without altering the mass of one? It seems to me that there is a  link  to mind somehow in what I come to believe to be true, is an ability to change how that mass is viewed? Is there any scientific proof for this that we can change the laws of gravity, by either injecting something into the space between these masses, or,  by altering the nature of the mass itself?

As Sandra Bullock is shown on the shore,  we find we are safe again.



Such a feeling had been deeply entrenched in my mind as I moved closer to the edge of a viewing point over looking  the Grand Canyon. That such an expanse of space was to have been found with such familiarity,  as in the movie just seen.

So in a way this idea of releasing the matters is a strange thing in my mind as to have ever considered it beyond the materialistic binds with which this process is viewed. That there are other and thought provoking ideas about what the spirit of ourselves can ever be held so tightly so as to see the way in which we are connected to the experiences in life.

What would it mean to have found that the attachments of life can be so easily held in perspective that we can release those things which keep us grounded. Not that we feel safe, but to realize that there is another kind of gravity that holds us to the materialistic binds which make our lives human here on earth.

See Also:

• Spacecraft propulsion
• Nature of Mass

CERN Courier: AMS-02 provides a precise measure of cosmic rays

Fig. 1. AMS, far left, was installed by NASA on the International Space Station on 19 May 2011, where it is the only major physical science experiment. It will operate there for the station's lifetime of approximately 20 years.
Image credit: NASA.

AMS-02 is a large particle detector by space standards and built using the concepts and technologies developed for experiments at particle accelerators but adapted to the extremely hostile environment of space. Measuring 5 × 4 × 3 m³, it weighs 7.5 tonnes. Reliability, performance and redundancy are the key features for the safe and successful operation of this instrument in space (CERN Courier July/August 2011 p18 and p23). See: AMS-02 provides a precise measure of cosmic rays

It's important I think to see the context of particle  reductionism in the proper light  as we examine what goes on in LHC. Doing AMSII work on space station at the same time, we see from space those energies which help us  to understand the naturalness of the work being done.

Data: CERN computing through the ages and Quantum AI Lab

Video: CERN computing through the ages

A peek at the early days of the Quantum AI Lab: a partnership between NASA, Google, and a 512-qubit D-Wave Two quantum computer.

History of The Fly's Eye Event

Two mirrors within the University of Utah's High Resolution Fly's Eye cosmic ray observatory. (Credit: Image  From University of Utah)

Most understand my curiosity with what is happening naturally around us in terms of High Energy Cosmic Events ( It should be stressed that the energy required to move these particles this fast is enormous. Millions of times more energy per particle than humans have been able to create. See- Closure).

The highest energy particle ever observed was detected by the Fly's Eye in 1991. With an energy of 3.5 x 10²⁰eV (or 56J), the particle, probably a proton or a light nucleus, had 108 times more energy than particles produced in the largest earth-bound accelerators. See: Wayback Machine

So for me it is an interesting confirmation about what scientists do with regard to trying to understand these events. How much energy is involved and whether we can create models with which to understand the decay products that are created from.

The highest-energy cosmic ray ever detected was observed on October 15, 1991 by the Fly's Eye cosmic ray detector in Utah, USA. The detector is located in the desert in Dugway Proving Grounds 75 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The Fly's Eye detects cosmic rays by observing the light that they cause when they strike the atmosphere. When an extremely high-energy cosmic ray enters the atmosphere, it collides with an atomic nucleus and starts a cascade of charged particles that produce light as they zip through the atmosphere. The charged particles of a cosmic ray air shower travel together at very nearly the speed of light, so the Utah detectors see a fluorescent spot move rapidly along a line through the atmosphere. By measuring how much light comes from each stage of the air shower, one can infer not only the energy of the cosmic ray but also whether it was more likely a simple proton or a heavier nucleus. See: The Fly's Eye Event

Animation of air shower detection in the Auger Engineering Array

See Also:

• The Pierre Auger Cosmic Ray Observatory

Lawrence Krauss - Debate in Stockholm, 2013

A discussion about the definition of nothing. And the relation of philosophy and theology to science. Attendees are Lawrence M Krauss, Bengt Gustafsson, Åsa Wikforss, Stefan Gustavsson and Ulrika Engström. Moderator: Christer SturmarkLawrence Krauss - Debate in Stockholm, 2013

See:

• Quantum Gravity in the Cosmic Microwave Background? 
• Using Cosmology to Establish the Quantization of Gravity
• A Short Primer on Gravity Waves

A Deeper Search for Building Blocks of Nature

National High Magnetic Field Laboratory

The strange properties of superconducting materials called “cuprates” (bismuth strontium calcium copper oxide is shown here), which cannot be described by known quantum mechanical methods, may correspond to properties of black holes in higher dimensions.

According to modern quantum theory, energy fields permeate the universe, and flurries of energy in these fields, called “particles” when they are pointlike and “waves” when they are diffuse, serve as the building blocks of matter and forces. But new findings suggest this wave-particle picture offers only a superficial view of nature’s constituents. See:

Signs of a Stranger, Deeper Side to Nature’s Building Blocks 

By: Natalie Wolchover, Quanta Magazine, July 1, 2013

Abdus Salam Movie – The Dream of Symmetry

The movie presents the extraordinary figure of Abdus Salam of Pakistan, who not only was an outstanding scientist but also a generous humanitarian and a valuable person. His rich and busy life was an endless quest for symmetry, that he pursued in the universe of physical laws and in the world of human beings.See:Abdus Salam Movie – The Dream of Symmetry

See Also:

• Abdus Salam Movie – The Dream of Symmetry
• Exploring Matter At the Dawn of Time

Nima Arkani-Hamed Lectures

Nima Arkani-Hamed on developments in Physics and future vision

The Salam Lecture Series 2012, with a week-long series of lectures by renowned theoretical physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed. Giving his audience a panoramic view of 400 years of physics in his first lecture, Arkani-Hamed provided insights into the various concepts that have dominated the world of fundamental physics at different points in history. "Everything that we have learned [over the past 400 years] can be subsumed with a basic slogan, and the slogan is that of unification," he said. "More and more disparate phenomena turn out to be different aspects of the same thing." "Physics," he stressed "forces you to remove artificial distinction between disciplines.

See Also:

• Nima Arkani-Hamed Lecture: Day 1
• Nima Arkani-Hamed Lecture: Day 2 
• Nima Arkani-Hamed Lecture: Day 5
• The Amplituhedron
• Guest Post: Lance Dixon on Calculating Amplitudes

Exploring Matter At the Dawn of Time

Physicist Paul Sorensen describes discoveries made at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle accelerator at Brookhaven National Laboratory. At RHIC, scientists from around the world study what the universe may have looked like in the first microseconds after its birth, helping us to understand more about why the physical world works the way it does - from the smallest particles to the largest stars. See: Exploring Matter at the Dawn of Time and RHIC

Detailed Characterization of Jets in Heavy Ion Collisions Using Jet Shapes and Jet Fragmentation Functions

The CMS detector has excellent capabilities for studying high-pT jets formed in heavy ion collisions. Previous CMS analyses have characterized the energy loss of hard-scattered partons traversing the medium produced in such collisions at a center of mass energy of 2.76 TeV using the momentum imbalance of di-jet and photon-jet events. In this paper, the fragmentation properties of inclusive jets with pT,jet>100~GeV/c in PbPb collisions are characterized by measuring differential and integated jet shapes, as well as charged particle fragmentation functions. A data sample of PbPb collisions collected in 2011 at a center of mass energy of sNN−−−√=2.76~TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of Lint=140 μb−1 is used. The results for PbPb collisions as a function of collision centrality are compared to reference distributions based on pp data collected at the same collision energy. For both PbPb and pp collisions, jets are reconstructed with the anti-kT clustering algorithm with a resolution parameter of 0.3 and using ``Particle Flow'' objects that combine tracking and caloritmetry information. The jet shapes and fragmentation functions are measured for reconstructed charged particles with \pt>1~GeV/c within the jet cone. For the most central collisions indications of a broadening of the differential jet shape in PbPb collisions are observed, as well as a significant rise of the PbPb/pp fragmentation function ratio for the softest fragmentation products with pT<3~GeV/c. See: Detailed Characterization of Jets in Heavy Ion Collisions Using Jet Shapes and Jet Fragmentation Functions

See Also:

•  public page of the CMS results
• "Whatever happened to AdS/CFT and the Quark Gluon Plasma?"

Hubble Movie Theater: Revelation

Take a thrill ride through 15 years of Hubble images, starting with Hubble’s first picture and ending with its anniversary image of the Whirlpool Galaxy. In less than three minutes, 800 Hubble images flash over the screen, sometimes as fast as 60 pictures per second.See:HUBBLE Site

PI director Neil Turok’s welcome speech

See Also: Perimeter Institute and the crisis in modern physics

Catching Black Holes on the Fly

Black Holes Shine for NuSTAR Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

NASA's black-hole-hunter spacecraft, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, has "bagged" its first 10 supermassive black holes. The mission, which has a mast the length of a school bus, is the first telescope capable of focusing the highest-energy X-ray light into detailed pictures. See: Catching Black Holes on the Fly

See:

• NuSTAR: the Nuclear Spectroscopic Array(PDF)
• The Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array Mission - NuSTAR

How to Find Black holes with Lasers

In February 2013 I was invited by the Institute of Physics to give a lecture in the famous lecture theatre of the Royal Institution of Great Britain as part of their Physics in Perspective series. I was to expect about 400 students and teachers from schools across the country. See: How to Find Black holes with Lasers

 Freise_Finding_Black_Holes_with_Lasers_180213_reduced.pdf

What Dirac And Feynman Had in Common?

"The adventure of our science of physics is a perpetual attempt to recognize that the different aspects of nature are really different aspects of the same thing" -- Richard Feynman

Should I be so bold to change the word in Feynman's quote as to suggest that "perpetual" be changed to "perceptual?" Conceptually, to be able to explain the Diagrams,  as a process unfolding?

"When I see equations, I see the letters in colors – I don't know why. As I'm talking, I see vague pictures of Bessel functions from Jahnke and Emde's book, with light-tan j's, slightly violet-bluish n's, and dark brown x's flying around. And I wonder what the hell it must look like to the students." Feynman, Richard. 1988. What Do You Care What Other People Think? New York: Norton. P. 59.

A Conformal Diagram of a Minkowski Spacetime

The question I raised in the Blog Post title is one that has to do with perception and how we can see in different ways. How did such a view of the natural world bring to light....anti-matter? Was it a conceptualization about time?

While Dirac spoke about projective geometry I could not but help to see that Feynman thought to use his diagrams to help see in "that kind of space."  As a layman, I could definitely be wrong.

You can picture all the directions in Minkowski space as the points in a three-dimensional projective space. The relationships between vectors, null-vectors and so on - - and you get at once just the relationships between points in a three-dimensional vector space. I always used these geometrical ideas for getting clear notions about relationships in relativity although I didn’t refer to them in my published works.Oral History Transcript — Dr. P. A. M. Dirac

See:

Word Picture