hadron

Scientists who announced two months ago observations of the elusive Higgs boson, the so-called "God particle," have had their research published in the peer-reviewed Physics Letters B, along with an astounding list of thousands of authors.

More than 5,000 researchers around the world are said to have contributed to the landmark studies by the CMS and ATLAS teams working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). They said on July 4 the new boson they had observed was consistent with the Higgs, believed to be responsible for imparting all elementary particles in the universe with mass.

Two articles by the teams are each about 30 pages long. The combined author list takes up 19 pages of single-spaced text and appears to have roughly 6,000 names. Wouldn't that be fun to cite as a footnote in full? … Read more

The European nuclear research agency CERN collided two high-power proton beams in the early hours of Thursday morning, marking the beginning of this year's Large Hadron Collider physics data collection.

The colliding beams were each of an intensity of 4 teraelectronvolts (TeV), and the resulting 8 TeV collision energy is the most powerful the particle accelerator has managed yet. In 2011's experiments, collisions went up to 7 TeV and, following the 20-month shut-down that will take place from November, CERN hopes to achieve LHC collision energy of 13 then 14 TeV.

"The experience of two good years … Read more

Physicists based in the U.S. today presented evidence of the Higgs boson particle that correlates closely with European researchers' work at the Large Hadron Collider.

Researchers released an analysis of 10 years worth of data from the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, which provide more hints of the Higgs boson, but not a conclusive finding.

The data, presented at a physics conference in Italy, indicate that the particle could exist at a mass of between 115 gigaelectronvolts and 135 gigaelectronvolts. This result is consistent with the last December's finding from CERN's Large Hadron Collider in … Read more

Researchers at the CERN particle accelerator have found "intriguing hints" of the Higgs boson, a moment of major progress in years of previously unfruitful searching for the elusive subatomic particle.

The search for the Higgs boson is the top priority of CERN's massive and expensive Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland. Its Atlas experiment showed a statistically suspicious increase in activity that indicates the Higgs could be pinned down with a mass of 126 giga-electron-volts, and showing some important agreement, its independent CMS experiment found a possible result nearby at 124GeV.

"We observe an excess of … Read more

The physics buzz reached a frenzy in the past few days over the announcement that the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva is planning to release what is widely expected to be tantalizing--although not conclusive--evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson, the elementary particle hypothesized to be the origin of the mass of all matter.

Many physicists have already swung into action, swapping rumors about the contents of the announcement and proposing grand ideas about what those rumors would mean, if true. "It's impossible to be excited enough," says Gordon Kane, a theoretical physicist at the University … Read more

On today's show, Brian Tong offends nearly the entire Internet, so consider that fair warning. HTC is willing to negotiate with Apple, Google is willing to make it easier to get your account back if you're suspended for not using your real name on Google+, and Netflix is willing to lose a bunch of money this quarter in hopes of surviving beyond it.

GENEVA--The Large Hadron Collider is a marvel of both brute-force and sophisticated engineering.

To start, look at the mostly circular cavern, 27 kilometers in circumference, that houses the accelerator. It's got an average depth of 100 meters, but in fact it's actually horizontal: its plane is tilted 1.4 percent to keep it as shallow as possible to minimize the expense of digging vertical shafts while placing the cavern in a subterranean sandstone layer.

Tidal forces from the moon cause the Earth's crust to rise about 25cm, an effect that increases the LHC's circumference by 1mm. … Read more

GENEVA--The LHC shows science on an unusually large scale.

Thousands of researchers are involved in each of the Large Hadron Collider's major experiments, and more are there to operate the beam itself. Something like half the world's particle physicists are involved one way or another with the LHC, estimated Maria Isabel Pedraza Morales, a University of Wisconsin physicist who works on the ATLAS experiment.

The accelerator is likely to lead to hundreds of academic papers and doctoral dissertations in coming years. CERN's hallways are teeming with an international mix of senior physicists and young researchers just getting … Read more

GENEVA--There are two kinds of physicists in the world, broadly speaking: those with the equation-covered blackboards, and those with the scales, thermometers, and pressure gauges.

The theoretical physicists have had the upper hand for years, but something new has begun tilting the balance toward the experimentalists: the Large Hadron Collider.

This mammoth, $8 billion particle accelerator is housed in a ring 27km in circumference bored about 100 meters beneath a somewhat pastoral valley west of Geneva and operated by a multinational nuclear physics organization called CERN, which was founded in 1954.

The LHC is now speeding protons nearly to the … Read more