Scientists and engineers from around the world collaborate with Fermilab to develop state-of-the-art technologies and solve the mysteries of matter, energy, space and time. Here is a look at 10 ways they advanced science and technology this year.
muon
How can you locate hidden chambers inside a Mayan pyramid? Mark Adams and his colleagues are in the process of exploring the interior of Kukulcan’s pyramid at Chichén Itzá using particles called muons. In March 2022, he and his teammates travelled to Mexico to start the work.
From MSN (Spain), May 26, 2022: A series of precise measurements of well-known ordinary particles and processes have threatened to shake our understanding of physics from the Muon g-2 and W boson Fermilab announcements . Now the LHC is preparing to operate at a higher energy level and intensity than ever before, there is a chance that new particles are produced through even rarer processes or are hidden under backgrounds that we have not yet unearthed.
From NBC News, May 4, 2022: A new research initiative that includes Fermilab scientist Alan Bross plans to scan Egypt’s Great Pyramid of Giza using energetic particles from space. The new device is a high-powered telescope to map the Great Pyramid’s internal makeup from all angles and could help scientists “see” inside the ancient structure to glean new details about its mysterious inner chambers.
From Science News, April 22, 2022: A more detailed survey of the Great Pyramid is being planned by a team of researchers who will place much larger detectors than previously used outside the pyramid measuring muons from multiple angles. The results will provide a 3-D view of what’s inside in the Great Pyramid, says Fermilab particle physicist Alan Bross.
For the Muon g-2 experiment, researchers create billions of muons to study their surprising properties.
The Mu2e experiment at Fermilab will look for a never-before-seen subatomic phenomenon that, if observed, would transform our understanding of elementary particles: the direct conversion of a muon into an electron. An international collaboration of over 200 scientists is building the Mu2e precision particle detector that will hunt for new physics beyond the Standard Model.
From Live Science, March 14, 2022: Fermilab’s Alan Bross is leading a team planning to scan the Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest pyramid ever constructed in ancient Egypt. The team will use powerful scans to analyze muons in greater detail aiming to answer the question of what exists in two mysterious voids in the pyramid.
From The Big Think, January 6, 2022: Particle physics needs a new collider to supersede the Large Hadron Collider. Muons, not electrons or protons, might hold the key.
From Business AM (Belgium), January 1, 2022: In 2021, physicists around the world conducted some interesting experiments examining the Standard Model and ways it can’t explain every mystery of the universe. Last April, members of the Muon g-2 experiment at Fermilab announced their first measurement of the muon’s magnetic moment. This experiment was important was because the measurement did not perfectly match the Standard Model’s prediction of the magnetic moment.