On hadron colliders, dark matter and black holes

[jfrazierjr]

Well, as always, feel free to ask questions about the bits that I don't explain properly and I'll try to be clearer.

Oh, here's the picture from the BBC of the damage at one of the magnet junctions:



Note that this should all be in a straight line for the particles to travel around the ring. That helium leak really made a mess.

Heh... it's "accidents" like this that don't really engender feelings of confidence that this thing won't end up destroying the world.....

[torstan]

@Karro I'm not sure there would be a lot of world left to be 'post-apocalyptic' if a black hole ate it. What we really need is a disaster that 'just' does serious damage to the planet, without destroying it and/or the accompanying universe.

The theory I work most with is called supersymmetry and it works really well if there are new particles and the lightest new particle is around 100 times heavier than the proton. This is within the reach of the LHC and they would be produced in the lab in numbers that could be measured. They should already be produced very rarely by the tevatron, but their event rates would be so low that they would never see them.

The lightest of these new particles is the dark matter candidate in these theories. Now dark matter is the most prevalent form of matter in our universe, and holds the galaxy together. It interacts very rarely. However, it is possible for one dark matter particle to annihilate with another dark matter particle. In this case you would get two high energy 'normal' particles out, like an electron and a positron. They would each have an energy equal to the mass of a dark matter particle. When the dark matter particles annihilate their mass goes to energy through E=mc^2, so we know the energy of the produced particles. A number of experiments have been looking for these high energy particles.

Now the experiment ATIC (Advanced Thin Ionization Calorimeter) and the PAMELA satellite both claimed to see high energy particles. To cut a long story short, ATIC saw electrons with an energy up to 1000 times the proton mass. Now, you'll see that's 10 times larger than the masses I would like to see. Not only that, but that would set the mass of the lightest new particle. All the other more exotic particles would be heavier. It would be very bad if this were the case. Thankfully the ATIC data seems likely to be disproved so I can breath a little easier and get back to analysing how supersymmetry would show up at the LHC.

@Joe I noticed the quotes around 'accident', which rather suggests you know it was something more than that. Come clean. I know you did it. If you come quietly, I promise to make it swift and painless. If the experimentalists get to you first I can't help you...

[Karro]

Supersymmetry...

It sounds like beautiful math. Sadly, calculus and the accompanying calc-based physics is as high as I ever got in college on this stuff. I was smart enough to do very well there, but perceived myself to be a half-tic not-smart-enough to go any further down the path of SCIENCE. So I sold out... got a business degree instead. (What I really wanted to do was write )

Ah, but we fantasize, and a word like supersymmetry is just the sort of thing that sci-fi is made of! Beautiful, elegant, and I have no idea what it means.

Also... I suspect that Joe did what he did...









....with MIND BULLETS.

[jfrazierjr]

@Joe I noticed the quotes around 'accident', which rather suggests you know it was something more than that. Come clean. I know you did it. If you come quietly, I promise to make it swift and painless. If the experimentalists get to you first I can't help you...

I will quote from one of my all time favorite shows: Hogan's Heroes:

Sergeant Schultz : I know Nooothingg....

[torstan]

Yes, there seems to be a very deep set of relations at the heart of physics that are based on symmetries like those of shapes, for example a circle has a continuous rotational symmetry whereas an equilateral triangle has a discrete rotational symmetry (you can only rotate it in angles of 120 degrees if you want it to look the same after the rotation). An analagous mathematical formalism describes how different particle states can be related to each other - so you can 'rotate' between particles if they fall within the same symmetry group. It's very clean and powerful but it does tend to screw with your head.

Supersymmetry takes these symmetries one step further and relates the class of particles that photons belong to to the class of particles that electrons belong to. This doubles the number of particles in the theory and gives us lots of new particles to look for. All because we added an extra symmetry to the theory.

Yep. The Mind Bullets. I didn't want to mention them here for fear of attracting Official attention to the thread but I fear Joe's involvement may well be out of the bag now. Ah well, he was a good CL when we knew him.

[Karro]

Yes, there seems to be a very deep set of relations at the heart of physics that are based on symmetries like those of shapes, for example a circle has a continuous rotational symmetry whereas an equilateral triangle has a discrete rotational symmetry (you can only rotate it in angles of 120 degrees if you want it to look the same after the rotation). An analagous mathematical formalism describes how different particle states can be related to each other - so you can 'rotate' between particles if they fall within the same symmetry group. It's very clean and powerful but it does tend to screw with your head.

Supersymmetry takes these symmetries one step further and relates the class of particles that photons belong to to the class of particles that electrons belong to. This doubles the number of particles in the theory and gives us lots of new particles to look for. All because we added an extra symmetry to the theory.

Yep. The Mind Bullets. I didn't want to mention them here for fear of attracting Official attention to the thread but I fear Joe's involvement may well be out of the bag now. Ah well, he was a good CL when we knew him.

Hmm. That kind of makes sense in a pop-sciency kind of way. Thanks.

Joe: Sorry I ratted you and your secret powers out.

[Steel General]

Hmmmm....I had Joe pegged as working for the Dharma Initiative

[jfrazierjr]

Hmmmm....I had Joe pegged as working for the Dharma Initiative

Heh.. I was once known as Dr Marvin Candle....

That reminds me, I was watching the credits for Survivor last night and there was something one there at the end for something like :

Dharma Creative blah blah blah.....

I just found that rather ironic...

[RPMiller]

Joe, just remember this word: FNORD.

Oh crap, I'll have to say it again as you will have forgotten it after reading. Remember this word: FNORD.

Hm... I don't think this will work after all. Nothing to see here, move along.

[jfrazierjr]

Joe, just remember this word: .

Oh crap, I'll have to say it again as you will have forgotten it after reading. Remember this word: .

Hm... I don't think this will work after all. Nothing to see here, move along.

What word? your talking nonsense now.... What word should I remember(and why)?