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- Written by Parab Ghosh
- science correspondent
image source, Victor de Schwamberg/Science Photo Library
Artwork: Ghost particles are currently undetectable
Some physicists have long suspected that mysterious “ghost” particles in the world around us could significantly advance our understanding of the nature of the universe.
Scientists now think they have found a way to prove whether they exist.
Cologne, the European Center for Particle Research, has approved experiments designed to find evidence of them.
New equipment will be a thousand times more sensitive to such particles than previous equipment.
It detects particles by colliding them against a hard surface rather than colliding them with each other, as in Cern’s main instrument, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
So what are these ghostly particles? Why was a new approach needed to detect them?
The current theory of particle physics is called the Standard Model.
According to it, everything in the universe is made up of 17 particles, including the well-known particles such as the electron and the Higgs boson, as well as the lesser-known but wonderfully named charm quarks, tau-neutrinos, and gluons. It is said to be made up of a family of
Some particles, mixed in various combinations, make up the larger yet incredibly small particles that make up the stars and galaxies we see in the world around us and in the universe, while others play a role in the forces of nature. There are also particles.
But there’s a problem. Astronomers have noticed phenomena in the sky, such as the movement of galaxies, that strongly suggest that we only observe 5 percent of the universe.
It is possible that some, or all, of the rest of the universe is made up of “ghost” or “hidden” particles. These are thought to be phantom doppelgangers of the 17 particles of the Standard Model.
Even if they exist, they are very difficult to detect because they rarely interact with the world as we know it. Like ghosts, they pass straight through everything and are undetected by any earthly device.
However, according to theory, ghost particles can decay into Standard Model particles, and these can be detected by a detector.
Rather than colliding particles as most current experiments do, Hidden Particle Search (SHiP) collides particles with large blocks of material. This means that all particles are shattered into smaller bits, rather than just some. The diagram below shows why this “fixed target” approach is so effective.
The project’s Ghostbuster director, Professor Andrei Goltvin from Imperial College London, said the experiment “marks a new era in the search for hidden particles”.
“SHiP has the unique potential to solve some of the major problems in particle physics and has the potential to discover particles never seen before,” he said.
The search for ghost particles requires specially adapted equipment.
For example, a typical experiment using the Large Hadron Collider can detect new particles up to a meter away from the collision. But ghost particles remain invisible and can travel tens or even hundreds of meters before they disintegrate and reveal themselves. Therefore, SHiP’s detectors are located much further away.
“We are explorers”
Professor Mitesh Patel of Imperial College described the new approach as “ingenious”.
“What’s really fascinating to me about this experiment is that even though these particles are right under our noses, because of the way they interact, or rather don’t interact, we I couldn’t see the particles.
“We are explorers and believe we can see something interesting in this new terrain. So we should take a look.”
According to Cologne physicist Dr. Claudia Adida, SHiP will be built within an existing facility in Cologne.
“We plan to reuse existing caverns, infrastructure and parts as much as possible, and we will have facilities that will help us explore this hidden sector that has never been seen before.” said.
SHiP will run in parallel with all of Sarne’s other experiments, the largest of which is the Large Hadron Collider, which was completed in 2008 at a cost of £3.75 billion. , continues to search for 95% of the lost universe. So far, no particles other than the Standard Model have been found, so the plan is for him to build a machine three times larger and more powerful.
The initial cost of a future circular collider is estimated at £12 billion. The planned launch date is in the mid-2040s, but the new particle-trapping capabilities will not be fully exploited until 2070.
In contrast, the SHiP experiment is due to start searching for new particles in 2030 and will cost around 100 times less, at around £100m. But researchers say they need a full range of approaches to consider all options to find the particle that could lead to one of the biggest breakthroughs in the history of physics.
Parab Ghosh and Kate Stevens go inside the world’s largest particle accelerator to find out why scientists want even bigger particle accelerators.
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