From Scientific American, March 16, 2023: Big news about a smaller size: MINERvA researchers used a new and entirely independent method to measure a proton’s radius. The team’s measurement of the proton’s radius was 0.73 femtometer, even smaller than the 0.84-femtometer electric charge radius. In either case, it is almost 10,000 times smaller than a hydrogen atom.
proton
The Standard Model is the best theory devised that describes most of the data taken in the quantum realm. It predicts that protons are stable. But what if the Standard Model is wrong? Could protons decay? In this video, Don Lincoln talks about why we think protons are stable and how we could be wrong.
From Big Think, Feb. 6, 2023: For the first time, the proton’s size and structure was measured using Fermilab’s MINERVA detector by studying proton/neutrino interactions. This new method, which studies weak force interactions, is a first step in which scientists can use to better understand the laws of the Universe.
For the first time, particle physicists have been able to precisely measure the proton’s size and structure using neutrinos with data gathered from thousands of neutrino-hydrogen scattering events collected by MINERvA, a particle physics experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
From Science News, August 17, 2022: Emily Conover explains the “intrinsic” charm of protons. A new analysis of experimental results and theoretical calculations in Nature hopes to unveil a better understanding of one of the most important particles in the universe.
From Nature Italy May 20, 2022: CDF co-spokesperson Giorgio Chiarelli tells the story of how Italy contributed to the measurement of the W boson mass, opening a door on new physics. For more than 10 years after the Tevatron detector at Fermilab produced the last crashes between protons and antiprotons, the collaboration announced the most precise measure of the W boson mass ever achieved.
From Engineering Update, January 6, 2022: Illinois-based Caldwell Group Inc. has customized a lifting frame that may be used in the summer of 2022 during transatlantic transportation of cryomodules to Fermilab for the Proton Improvement Program II (PIP-II) project. STFC-UKRI in the UK designed and assembled the lifting frame to meet impact, vibration, lifting, and transport load requirements in both the United States and Europe.
From Futura Sciences (France), November 16, 2021: Today a quantum computer built by IBM seems on the point of unraveling certain secrets of the protons and neutrons that make up our bodies and the stars. Read more about this development which includes the Don Lincoln video explaining quantum chromodynamics.
From Forbes, May 18, 2021: Fermilab’s Don Lincoln explains the Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment, in Germany that has improved our understanding of the mass of this insubstantial denizen of the microcosm.
From the Observador (Portugal), April 18, 2021: The Muon g-2 experiment confirmed a small discrepancy previously detected between the measured values and those calculated by the most advanced theory we have with the probability that this measure is a statistical error is 1 in 100,000.