Feature Channels: Particle Physics

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Recent data from the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider show how three distinct variations of particles called upsilons “melt,” or dissociate, in the hot particle soup that existed in the very early universe. The results from the STAR experiment support the theory that this hot matter is a soup of “free” quarks and gluons. Measuring how different upsilons dissociate helps scientists learn about the quark-gluon plasma.

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Bottomonium mesons consist of a heavy bottom quark bound to an antibottom quark, and the two quarks can be bound loosely, more tightly, and very tightly (creating the smallest bottomonium meson). New calculations that predict the temperature at which these mesons will melt show that the smallest bottomonium particles can stay intact at very high temperatures. This may explain why collisions at different particle accelerators produce different numbers of bottomonium particles.

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In a study published in Nature Astronomy today, a team of researchers from the University of Naples “Federico II”, the University of Wroclaw, and the University of Bergen examined a quantum-gravity model of particle propagation in which the speed of ultrarelativistic particles decreases with rising energy.

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Researchers at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) have outlined a new optical communication protocol that exploits spatial patterns of light for multi-dimensional encoding in a manner that does not require the patterns to be recognised, thus overcoming the prior limitation of modal distortion in noisy channels.

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A team led by University of Minnesota Twin Cities physicists has discovered a new way to search for axions, hypothetical particles that could help solve some of nature’s most puzzling mysteries.

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Theorists have calculated how quickly a melted soup of quarks and gluons—the building blocks of protons and neutrons—transfers its momentum to heavy quarks. The calculation will help explain experimental results showing heavy quarks getting caught up in the flow of matter generated in heavy ion collisions.

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Jefferson Lab’s Superconducting Radiofrequency Operations team builds parts for accelerators around the world. Now, the team has achieved certification for its quality management system, signifying that the system meets the rigorous standards set by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in its ISO 9001: 2015 standard.

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The U.S. Department of Energy has given the greenlight for the MOLLER experiment to begin procurement of key components with its granting of Critical Decision-3A (CD-3A): Approve Long Lead Procurements. The determination allows the MOLLER project at Jefferson Lab to begin spending $9.14 million for long-lead procurements of critical items for which designs are complete. The MOLLER collaboration formed in 2006, and more than 100 physicists from more than 30 institutions are now involved. MOLLER will make a measurement of the electron’s weak charge that is five times more precise than any before. The electron’s weak charge is essentially how much influence the weak force exerts on the electron.

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Researchers at the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering are working with scientists from the Axion Dark Matter Experiment (ADMX) team at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) on a U.S. Department of Energy project to develop particle detectors that are sensitive enough to find these particles. The research, funded by a $350,000 grant, is part of a greater effort by the Department of Energy to explore the development of superconducting quantum detectors.

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After years of pioneering work, researchers at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have completed the detector towers that will soon sit at the heart of the SuperCDMS SNOLAB dark matter detection experiment.

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Neutrinos are subatomic particles produced in many types of radioactive decays, including in nuclear reactors. Because neutrinos interact with matter extremely weakly, they are impossible to shield. The SNO+ experiment has just shown that a detector filled with simple water can detect neutrinos from nuclear reactors, even though the neutrinos create only tiny signals in the detector.

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Rouven Essig is a theoretical particle physicist at Stony Brook University. He conceives new experiments and detection methods in the search for knowledge about dark matter.

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From a nanoscale grain of platinum, researchers made a first step in developing a tool that enables them to characterize the materials with a new level of detail, ultimately producing the best materials for the hydrogen production and use.

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The start of this year’s physics run at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) also marks the start of a new era. For the first time since RHIC began operating at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory in 2000, a brand new detector, known as sPHENIX, will track what happens when the nuclei of gold atoms smash into one another at nearly the speed of light. RHIC’s STAR detector, which has been running and evolving since 2000, will also see some firsts in Run 23.

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Suying Jin, who is entering her sixth and planned final year as a graduate student in the Princeton Program in Plasma Physics, won Princeton University’s honorific Charlotte Elizabeth Procter Fellowship for the 2023-24 academic year.

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Some mesons (quark-antiquark pairs) that emerge from a hot soup of matter generated in collisions of atomic nuclei appear to have a preferential “global spin alignment.” The spin preference cannot be explained by conventional mechanisms. A new model suggests that local fluctuations in the strong force may play a role in triggering the preference. The global spin alignment measurements may give scientists a new way to study local fluctuations in the strong force, which is the strongest and least understood of the four fundamental forces in nature.

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Brianna Romasky – who attended community college before moving to Australia, returning to the U.S. and enrolling at Rutgers–New Brunswick – is focused on plasma-based particle acceleration.

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Zhaodi Pan developed a detector to search for ancient clues in the cosmic microwave background.