&--Sunday, September 30, 2007 ; 6:48 PM
EldwinSchrodinger @ Mini Earth created in the lab
EldwinSchrodinger @ Mini Earth created in the lab
loving you always ♥
Physicists have reproduced the fluid dynamo mechanism that produces the Earth's magnetic field in a laboratory experiment for the first time. Electric currents produced by the circulation of the molten iron and nickel that surround the Earth's core are thought to create the Earth's magnetic field. Now physicists from Latvia and Germany have measured magnetic fields produced in liquid metal in a special facility at Riga, Latvia. The fields match the predictions of fluid dynamo theory (Phys Rev. Lett. 84 4365).
A conducting fluid needs to have a small 'seed' magnetic field before it can generate a self- sustaining field. The seed field induces electric currents in the fluid that in turn create a more powerful, and stable, magnetic field. This creation of the field relies on a positive feedback mechanism. However, the process only works if the metallic fluid is moving very quickly or if it exists in very large quantities.
The Latvian-German team applied a small magnetic field to a container filled with two cubic metres of molten sodium that was rotating at 15 metres per second. The high conductivity and velocity of liquid sodium was fast enough to generate an oscillating magnetic field in the fluid, and this field was maintained when the external magnetic field was turned off.
Labels: Technology
&--Saturday, September 29, 2007 ; 11:02 PM
EldwinSchrodinger @ Higgs Boson(s)
EldwinSchrodinger @ Higgs Boson(s)
loving you always ♥
The standard model predicts another kind of particles should exist, a "Higgs boson." Experimental proof of its existence will complete the standard model. The precise properties of the higgs boson, and how many higgs boson exist, will give us clues to how the standard model will be extended. For example, supersymmetry (SUSY) predicts that at least five types of Higgs Bosons exist. The existence and properties of higgs Bosons are a special test of the standard model because Higgs Bosons are different from any prevously known kind of particle. Leptons and quarks are basically all particles like electrons, that merely carry different electric, weak or strong charges. Similary, all the quanta that mediate the weak and strong interactions are like the photon. However, the Higgs Bosons that the standard model predicts are really a new kind of matter. If they are found, their prediction and discovery will stand as a spectacular achievement of human reasoning.
Labels: Elementary Particles
&-- ; 10:52 PM
EldwinSchrodinger @ Quarks and Leptons
EldwinSchrodinger @ Quarks and Leptons
loving you always ♥
There are 2 more particles like the electron. All their properties are identicle to those of the electron, except that they are heavier, and each is associated with its own neutrino. Although we don't have any idea why is that so, the standard model theory still correctly describes the behavior of these particles. In experiments, various numbers of these particles are produced going in gifferent directions. They are unstable particles, Decaying in less than a millionth of a second into electrons, positrons, neutrinos, and photons, so they do not stay around after they are produced, nor do they end up in anything we see. In all cases, the standard model correctly predicts the number of them, their directions, energies, and lifetimes, and all other aspects of their behavior. One is called the muon, and the other would be the tau. because they behave in similar ways, the electron, the muon, tau, and their associated neutrinos are grouped together in a class of particles called leptons.
Labels: Elementary Particles
&--Monday, September 10, 2007 ; 4:11 PM
EldwinSchrodinger @ A General Purpose Detector at the LHC
EldwinSchrodinger @ A General Purpose Detector at the LHC
loving you always ♥
CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) is a general purpose detector designed to run at the highest luminosity at the LHC. The CMS detector has been optimized for the search of the SM Higgs boson over a mass range from 90 GeV to 1 TeV, but it also allows detection of a wide range of possible signatures from alternative electro-weak symmetry breaking mechanisms. CMS is also well adapted for the study of top, beauty and tau physics at lower luminosities and will cover several important aspects of the heavy ion physics program. The CMS collaboration has more than 1860 members from 150 scientific institutions from 31 countries around the world. Capable of studying many aspects of proton collisions at 14 TeV, designed to measure the energy and momentum of Photons, electrons, muons, and other products of the collisions.Labels: Accelerators
