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Category: particle physics

I remember a year ago when this 1st came out; nice they are highlighting 1 yr later as a reminder.

British scientists David Thouless, Duncan Haldane and Michael Kosterlitz won this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics “for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter”. The reference to “theoretical discoveries” makes it tempting to think their work will not have practical applications or affect our lives some day. The opposite may well be true.

To understand the potential, it helps to understand the theory. Most people know that an atom has a nucleus in the middle and electrons orbiting around it. These correspond to different energy levels. When atoms group into substances, all the energy levels of each atom combine into bands of electrons. Each of these so-called energy bands has space for a certain number of electrons. And between each band are gaps in which electrons can’t flow.

If you apply an electrical charge (a flow of extra electrons) to a material, its conductivity is determined by whether the highest energy band has room for more electrons. If it does have room, the material will behave as a conductor. If not, you need extra energy to push the current of electrons into a new empty band and as a result the material behaves as an insulator. Understanding conductivity is vital to electronics, since electronic products ultimately rely on components that are electric conductors, semiconductors and insulators.

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We can even use a vacuum to explain how Quantum is in all things while solving one of the remaining discrepancies in physics.

In the observable universe, number of particles are estimated to be 1080 and if there were some discrepancy in Physics with the explanations of the observable universe or with its each particle then it should confine to factor 1080. I submit that 1080 is a huge figure that forms if one puts eighty zeros after 1. But if the discrepancy is of the factor 10120 then either it is beyond the total number of particles constituting the universe or the physicists might have gravely erred in their calculations. It might be a freak happening that resulted in such a huge quantity. After all, freaks are also the creations of nature or probably the nature itself has erred here. This discrepancy of 10120 is the largest and worst cosmological confusion which can be abbreviated CC and rightly so for cosmological constant as it is the cosmological constant based on Quantum mechanical model. Quantum mechanical model says, energy density of the vacuum is in the range of 10113 Joules per metre cube whereas General Relativity calculates it in the range of 10^−9 Joule per metre cube. An attempt is made to resolve this discrepancy using Spacetime transformation and gravitational gamma Г. Gravitational gamma Г is a term that appears in Schwarzschild solution of general relativity equations.

I submit that vacuum is not nothing but is everything and quantum mechanical model of the vacuum has very large energy density. In the words of John Archibald Wheeler, “Empty space is not empty… The density of field fluctuation energy in the vacuum argues that elementary particles represent percentage‐ wise almost completely negligible change in the locally violent conditions that characterise the vacuum.” That means there are violent conditions or fluctuations although vacuum on large scale appears smooth. Spacetime model has the capability of creating matter, forces, fields and particles. In fact, matter even the entire universe is assumed as spacetime as has been explained in my earlier article, “Matter Is No More Than Fluctuations In Vacuum*.”

I submit that the energy density of the vacuum, due to uncertainty principle, varies from point to point causing fluctuations. In other words, energy density at different points goes on varying even though there is no mass causing gravity. But even then at two points, due to fluctuations of energy density, rate of time may vary, causing difference in time by Planck time. These fluctuations can only be felt at a distance limited to Planck length or at microscopic scale but on macroscopic scale the space time, according to Quantum Mechanical model, appears smooth with no disturbances.

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NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has found a signal at the center of the neighboring Andromeda galaxy that could indicate the presence of the mysterious stuff known as dark matter. The gamma-ray signal is similar to one seen by Fermi at the center of our own Milky Way galaxy.

Gamma rays are the highest-energy form of light, produced by the universe’s most energetic phenomena. They’re common in galaxies like the Milky Way because , particles moving near the speed of light, produce when they interact with and starlight.

Surprisingly, the latest Fermi data shows the gamma rays in Andromeda—also known as M31—are confined to the galaxy’s center instead of spread throughout. To explain this unusual distribution, scientists are proposing that the emission may come from several undetermined sources. One of them could be , an unknown substance that makes up most of the universe.

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(Phys.org)—A quartet of researchers has boldly proposed the addition of six new particles to the standard model to explain five enduring problems. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, Guillermo Ballesteros with Université Paris Saclay, Javier Redondo with Universidad de Zaragoza, Andreas Ringwald with Max-Planck-Institut für Physik and Carlos Tamarit with Durham University describe the six particles they would like to add and why.

The standard theory is, of course, a model that has been developed over the past half-century by physicists to describe how the universe works, and includes such things as the electromagnetic, strong and weak interactions, and also describes what are believed to be the particles that play a role in it all. To date, the theory lists 17 and has stood up against rigorous testing, but it still does not include explanations for what are considered to be some fundamental things.

The researchers are quick to point out that they are not proposing any new physics. Instead, they have assembled what they believe are the most promising theories regarding several problems with the and their possible solutions, and have put them together as an outline of sorts for research moving forward.

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While cosmologists may be fascinated by what dark matter does, particle physicists are fascinated by what dark matter is. For us, dark matter should be—naturally—a particle, albeit one that is still lurking hidden in our data. For the last few decades, we’ve had a tantalizing guess as to what this particle might be—namely, the lightest of a new class of supersymmetric particles. Supersymmetry is an extension to the Standard Model of particles and forces that nicely addresses lingering questions about the stability of the mass of the Higgs boson, the unification of the forces, and the particle nature of dark matter. In fact, supersymmetry predicts a vast number of new particles—one for each particle we already know about. Yet while one of those new particles could constitute dark matter, to many of us that would be just a happy byproduct.

But after analyzing data from the first (2010–2012) and second (2015–2018) runs of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), we haven’t found supersymmetric particles yet—indeed, no new particles at all, beyond the Higgs boson. So, while we continue to hunt for supersymmetry, we’re also taking a fresh look at what our cosmology colleagues can tell us about dark matter. It is the strongest experimental evidence for new physics beyond the Standard Model, after all.

In fact, some might say that a principal goal of the LHC and future colliders will be to create and study dark matter. For that to happen, there must be a means for the visible universe and the dark universe to communicate with each other. In other words, the constituents of the particles that we collide must be capable of interacting with the putative dark-matter particles via fundamental forces. A force requires a force carrier, or boson. The electromagnetic force is carried by the photon, the weak nuclear force by so-called vector bosons, and so on. Interactions between dark matter and normal matter should be no different: They could happen by exchanging dark bosons.

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A new technique using liquid metals to create integrated circuits that are just atoms thick could lead to the next big advance for electronics.

The process opens the way for the production of large wafers around 1.5 nanometres in depth (a sheet of paper, by comparison, is 100,000nm thick).

Other techniques have proven unreliable in terms of quality, difficult to scale up and function only at very high temperatures — 550 degrees or more.

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As I shared yesterday with others, the world of tech is about to be flipped on its’ head & even spun around several times. So what is the impact? It means that the companies “big tech” & Silicon Valley will need to change & evolve faster than ever or they could see countries with no old tech products & old tech brand will be given an easier playing field to adapt, quick-to-market due to no legacy noise, & refreshing as the new image brand v. an older stigma-brand tied to the good old days of Moore’s Law. So, I see many new versions of SVs outside the US emerging.

Shanghai’s Pudong will build a Tsung-Dao Lee Research Center in the Zhangjiang area, along with a batch of new world-class scientific institutes in a bid to develop the area into a “national science center.”

The research center is named after the Shanghai-born scientist who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1957 and will focus on particle physics and astrophysics as well as quantum science and technology, the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission said.

“The new center aims to enhance China’s influence on the fields of fundamental physics,” a commission official told reporters yesterday.

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Harvesting energy from carbon emissions.

Washington: Scientists have developed tiny nano particles that turned carbon dioxide into fuel using light.

Researchers said that carbon dioxide converts into methane, a key building block for many types of fuels, by using only ultraviolet light as an energy source.

After having found a catalyst that can do this important chemistry using ultraviolet light, researchers at Duke University in the US hope to develop a version that would run on natural sunlight, a potential boon to alternative energy.

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NASA’s Fermi Telescope has looked at the gamma-ray emission of M31, the Andromeda Galaxy, and discovered the largest fraction of this powerful radiation comes from the core of the galaxy, very much like in our own Milky Way. The international team of researchers has considered this signature as potential indirect evidence of dark matter.

Some theoretical models predict gamma-ray emissions when dark matter particles interact with each other. Dark matter doesn’t like interacting at all, it doesn’t form clumps or clouds, so these gamma-ray signals might only happen in dense regions, like at the core of galaxies.

“We expect dark matter to accumulate in the innermost regions of the Milky Way and other galaxies, which is why finding such a compact signal is very exciting,” said lead scientist Pierrick Martin, an astrophysicist at the National Center for Scientific Research and the Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology in Toulouse, France, in a statement. “M31 will be a key to understanding what this means for both Andromeda and the Milky Way.”

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