From Quanta Magazine, March 30, 2020: Three progressively heavier copies of each type of matter particle exist, and no one knows why. A new paper by Steven Weinberg takes a stab at explaining the pattern, and summarizes a paper by Fermilab scientists Bogdan Dobrescu and Patrick Fox on the spread of the particles’ masses.
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From Nature Physics, April 2020: Fermilab scientist Pushpa Bhat and her University of Melbourne scientist Geoffrey Taylor discuss particle physics experiments in the United States and Asia and how interest in the development of next-generation colliders has been rekindled.
From Semiconductor Engineering, April 6, 2020: Fermilab, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have built an enormous superconducting magnet — one of 16 — that will be used in the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider particle accelerator project at CERN in Europe.
From Physics World, April 3, 2020: A collaboration that includes Fermilab scientists is exploring how quantum computing could be used to analyze the vast amount of data produced by experiments on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The researchers have shown that a “quantum support vector machine” can help physicists make sense out of the huge amounts of information generated at CERN.
Just like we orbit the sun and the moon orbits us, the Milky Way has satellite galaxies with their own satellites. Drawing from data on those galactic neighbors, a new model suggests the Milky Way should have an additional 100 or so very faint satellite galaxies awaiting discovery.
From Astronomy, March 31, 2020: Astronomers have discovered 139 new minor planets orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune by searching through data from the Dark Energy Survey, which is led by Fermilab. The new method for spotting small worlds is expected to reveal many thousands of distant objects in coming years — meaning these first hundred or so are likely just the tip of the iceberg.
From Physics Today, April 1, 2020: Fermilab scientist Vladimir Shiltsev provides a rundown of the advances that the particle accelerator community has made in increasing beam energy, power, luminosity and brilliance and summarizes the breakthroughs and discoveries that lie ahead for the field of beam physics.
From WDRB, March 29, 2020: A study published earlier this month by astronomers at the University of Pennsylvania distinguished more than 100 new planets in our solar system, but estimates show there could be as many as 70,000. These trans-Neptunian objects were found in the data gathered by the Dark Energy Survey, led by Fermilab.
From Five Books, March 30, 2020: Fermilab scientist Dan Hooper gives his recommendations for books on the Big Bang and talks about whether our entire understanding of the universe is about to be turned upside down.
In 2010, the Large Hadron Collider research program jumped into full swing as scientists started collecting physics data from particle collisions in the LHC for the first time. How has this gigantic, global scientific effort affected the world? Symmetry pulled together a few numbers to find out.