No.
No, no, no.
I was tempted to blame the science journalists for the incredibly wrong articles about this, but in fact it seems entirely the fault of the scientists involved.
Continue readingNo.
No, no, no.
I was tempted to blame the science journalists for the incredibly wrong articles about this, but in fact it seems entirely the fault of the scientists involved.
Continue readingHere’s a tip. If you read an argument either for or against a successor to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in which the words “string theory” or “string theorists” form a central part of the argument, then you can conclude that the author (a) doesn’t understand the science of particle physics, and (b) has an absurd caricature in mind concerning the community of high energy physicists. String theory and string theorists have nothing to do with whether such a collider should or should not be built.
Such an article has appeared on Big Think. It’s written by a certain Thomas Hartsfield. My impression, from his writing and from what I can find online, is that most of what he knows about particle physics comes from reading people like Ethan Siegel and Sabine Hossenfelder. I think Dr. Hartsfield would have done better to leave the argument to them.
Dr. Hartsfield’s article sets up one straw person after another.
Meanwhile, the article never once mentions the particle physics experimentalists and accelerator physicists. Remember them? The ones who actually build and run these machines, and actually discover things? The ones without whom the whole enterprise is all just math?
Although they mostly don’t appear in the article, there are strong arguments both for and against building such a machine; see below. Keep in mind, though, that any decision is still years off, and we may have quite a different perspective by the time we get to that point, depending on whether discoveries are made at the LHC or at other experimental facilities. No one actually needs to be making this decision at the moment, so I’m not sure why Dr. Hartsfield feels it’s so crucial to take an indefensible position now.
Continue readingAdvanced particle physics today:
Another page completed on the explanation of the “triplet model,” (a classic and simple variation on the Standard Model of particle physics, in which the W boson mass can be raised slightly relative to Standard Model predictions without affecting other current experiments.) The math required is still pre-university level, though complex numbers are now becoming important.
The first, second and third webpages in this series provided a self-contained introduction that concluded with a full cartoon of the triplet model. On our way to the full SU(2)xU(1) Standard Model, the fourth webpage gave a preliminary explanation of what SU(2) and U(1) are.
Today, the fifth page explains how a U(1)xU(1) Standard Model-like theory would work… and why the photon comes out massless in such a theory. Comments welcome!
Comments Off on 5th Webpage on the Triplet Model is Up
Posted in Higgs, LHC Background Info, Particle Physics, Quantum Field Theory
Tagged Higgs, LHC, particle physics, QuantumFieldTheory
Particle physics news today...
I’ve been spending my mornings this week at the 11th Long-Lived Particle Workshop, a Zoom-based gathering of experts on the subject. A “long-lived particle” (LLP), in this context, is either
Many Standard Model particles are in these classes (e.g. electrons and protons in the first category, charged pions and bottom quarks in the second).
But the focus of the workshop, naturally, is on looking for new ones… especially ones that can be created at current and future particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
Back in the late 1990s, when many theorists were thinking about these issues carefully, the designs of the LHC’s detectors — specifically ATLAS, CMS and LHCb — were already mostly set. These detectors can certainly observe LLPs, but many design choices in both hardware and software initially made searching for signs of LLPs very challenging. In particular, the trigger systems and the techniques used to interpret and store the data were significant obstructions, and those of us interested in the subject had to constantly deal with awkward work-arounds. (Here’s an example of one of the challenges... an older article, so it leaves out many recent developments, but the ideas are still relevant.)
Additionally, this type of physics was widely seen as exotic and unmotivated at the beginning of the LHC run, so only a small handful of specialists focused on these phenomena in the first few years (2010-2014ish). As a result, searches for LLPs were woefully limited at first, and the possibility of missing a new phenomenon remained high.
More recently, though, this has changed. Perhaps this is because of an increased appreciation that LLPs are a common prediction in theories of dark matter (as well as other contexts). The number of new searches, new techniques, and entirely new proposed experiments has ballooned, as has the number of people participating. Many of the LLP-related problems with the LHC detectors have been solved or mitigated. This makes this year’s workshop, in my opinion, the most exciting one so far. All sorts of possibilities that aficionados could only dream of fifteen years ago are becoming a reality. I’ll try to find time to explore just a few of them in future posts.
But before we get to that, there’s an interesting excess in one of the latest measurements… more on that next time.
Posted in Dark Matter, LHC News, Other Collider News, Particle Physics, The Scientific Process
Tagged atlas, cms, DarkMatter, LHC, LHCb, long-lived particles
Advanced particle physics today:
Today we move deeper into the reader-requested explanation of the “triplet model,” (a classic and simple variation on the Standard Model of particle physics, in which the W boson mass can be raised slightly relative to Standard Model predictions without affecting other current experiments.) The math required is still pre-university level, though slowly creeping up as complex numbers start to appear.
The first, second and third webpages in this series provided a self-contained introduction that concluded with a full cartoon of the triplet model, showing how a small modification of the Higgs mechanism of the Standard Model can shift a “W” particle’s mass upward.
Next, we begin a new phase in which the cartoon is gradually replaced with the real thing. In the new fourth webpage, I start laying the groundwork for understanding how the Standard Model works — in particular how the Higgs boson gives mass to the W and Z bosons, and what SU(2) x U(1) is all about — following which it won’t be hard to explain the triplet model.
Please send your comments and suggestions!
Posted in Higgs, LHC Background Info, Particle Physics, Quantum Field Theory
Tagged Higgs, particle physics, QuantumFieldTheory, StandardModel
Advanced particle physics today:
Today I’m continuing the reader-requested explanation of the “triplet model,” (a classic and simple variation on the Standard Model of particle physics, in which the W boson mass can be raised slightly relative to Standard Model predictions without affecting other current experiments.) The math required is pre-university level, just algebra this time.
The third webpage, showing how to combine knowledge from the first page and second page of the series into a more complete cartoon of the triplet model, is ready. It illustrates, in rough form, how a small modification of the Higgs mechanism of the Standard Model can shift a “W” particle’s mass upward.
Future pages will seek to explain why the triplet model resembles this cartoon closely, and also to explore the implications for the Higgs boson.
Please send your comments and suggestions!
Posted in LHC Background Info, LHC News, Particle Physics, Quantum Field Theory
Tagged fields, particle physics, QuantumFieldTheory
Advanced particle physics today:
I’m continuing the reader-requested explanation of the “triplet model,” a classic and simple variation on the Standard Model of particle physics, in which the W boson mass can be raised slightly relative to Standard Model predictions without affecting other current experiments.
The math required is pre-university level, mostly algebra and graphing.
The second webpage, describing what particles are in field theory, and how the particles of one field can obtain mass from a second field, is ready now. In other words, the so-called “Higgs mechanism” for mass generation is sketched on the new page.
Meanwhile the first page (describing what the vacuum of a field theory is and how to find it in simple examples) is here.
Please send your comments and suggestions, as I will continue to revise the pages in order to improve their clarity.
Posted in LHC Background Info, LHC News, Particle Physics, Quantum Field Theory
Tagged fields, particle physics, QuantumFieldTheory
Advanced particle physics today:
Based on readers’ requests, I have started the process of explaining the “triplet model,” a classic variation on the Standard Model of particle physics, in which the W boson mass can be raised slightly relative to Standard Model predictions without affecting other current experiments.
The math required is pre-university level, so it should be broadly accessible to those who are interested.
My guess is that I’ll structure the explanation as four or five webpages, and will put up about one a week. The first one, describing what the vacuum of a field theory is and how to find it in simple examples, is here. Please send your comments and suggestions, as I will continue to revise the pages in order to improve their clarity.
Posted in LHC Background Info, Particle Physics, Quantum Field Theory
Tagged fields, particle physics, QuantumFieldTheory