Science News:What are bosons and how did they get their name?

funny design for physics and science lovers, especially quantum mechanics and particle physics, the universe is made of bosons, fermions and morons

The totality of existence can be divided into these categories, each with a vital role in the structure of the universe.

The complex and intricate patterns are the result of the experiments performed by scientists at CERN, home of the Large Hadron Collider, in Geneva, Switzerland.

Richard Feynman’s famous diagrams weren’t just a way to do calculations. They represented a deep shift in thinking about how the universe is put together.

Some neutrinos are so energetic we don't know how they are produced. But a clue lies in the heart of distant quasars.

Project Orion Nuclear Pulse Rocket, Technical Reports on the Orion Concept, Atomic Bombs Propelling Massive Spaceships to the Planets, External Pulsed Plasma Propulsion - Kindle edition by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), World Spaceflight News. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Project Orion Nuclear Pulse Rocket, Technical Reports on the Orion Concept, Atomic Bombs Propelling Massive Spaceships to the Planets, External Pulsed Plasma Propulsion.

Physicists have shown that "splitting" particles of light into so-called Majorana bosons, a feat long thought to be mathematically impossible, may be achievable

"Father" from the series "Spin Family (Bosons and Fermions)" 2009, steel and silk, 7" x 6" x 6". We've posted previously about physicist, software designer, and artist Julian Voss-Andreae whose…

(Phys.org) —When C. K. Hong, Z. Y. Ou and Leonard Mandel demonstrated destructive quantum interference between pairs of indistinguishable bosons in their 1987 paper1, they did so with massless photons. Their protocol – christened the Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) effect – remained unchanged until recently, when scientists at The University of Queensland, Brisbane proposed an experiment to implement HOM in the matter-wave regime. This massive-particle version of the HOM effect uses pair-correlated atoms produced in a collision of two Bose–Einstein condensates and subjected to two laser-induced so-called Bragg pulses. (A Bose-Einstein condensate, or BEC, is a phase of matter in which bosons in a dilute gas enter the same quantum state when cooled to a temperature near absolute zero – that is, 0 K or −273.15 °C – and macroscopic-scale quantum effects appear. Bragg pulses replicate atom optics analogs of the mirror and beam-splitter elements of the photonic HOM interferometer.) By simulating the atom-optics HOM effect using colliding condensates and predicting an interference visibility of about 70%, the researchers say that their matter-wave approach may lead to stronger tests of quantum mechanics, including Bell inequality violations and the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen paradox, the latter now being known as entanglement.

The ATLAS experiment at CERN has released preliminary results that show evidence that the Higgs boson decays to two tau particles. Taus belong to a group of subatomic particles called the fermions, which make up matter. This result – measured at 4.1 sigma on the 5-point scale particle physicists use to determine the certainty of a result – is the first evidence for a Higgs decay to fermions. On 4 July 2012, the ATLAS and CMS experiments at CERN announced the discovery of a new particle, which was later confirmed to be a Higgs boson. For physicists, the discovery meant the beginning of a quest to find out what the new particle was, if it fit in the Standard Model, our current model of nature in particle physics, or if its properties could point to new physics beyond that model. An important property of the Higgs boson that ATLAS physicists are trying to measure is how it decays. The Higgs boson lives only for a short time and disintegrates into other particles. The various possibilities of the final states are called decay modes. So far, ATLAS physicists had found evidence that the Higgs boson decays into different types of gauge bosons – the kind of elementary particles that carry forces. The other family of fundamental particles, the fermions, make up matter. The tau is a fermion and behaves like a very massive electron. Graphical representation of a Higgs boson decaying to two tau particles in the ATLAS detector. The taus decay into an electron (blue line) and a muon (red line) (Image: ATLAS) The Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism was first proposed to describe how gauge bosons acquire mass. But the Standard Model predicts that fermions also acquire mass in this manner, so the Higgs boson could decay directly to either bosons or fermions. The new preliminary result from ATLAS shows clear evidence that the Higgs boson indeed does decay to fermions, consistent with the rate predicted by the Standard Model. This important finding was made possible through careful analysis of data produced by the LHC during its first run. Only with new data will physicists be able to determine if the compatibility remains or if other new models become viable. Fortunately, the next LHC run, which begins in 2015, is expected to produce several times the existing data sample. In addition, the proton collisions will be at higher energies, producing Higgs bosons at higher rates. ATLAS' broad physics programme, which includes precision measurements of the Higgs boson, will continue to test the Standard Model. The years ahead will be exciting for particle physics as – the LHC experiments have found new territory that they have only just begun to explore. Read more: For a detailed account see "Higgs into Fermions" by the ATLAS collaboration

The Standard Model of particle physics is the theory describing three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions – excluding gravity) in the universe and classifying all known elementary particles. It was developed in stages throughout the latter half of the 20th century, through the work of many scientists worldwide,[1] with the current formulation being finalized in the mid-1970s upon experimental confirmation of the existence of quarks. Since then, proof of the top quark (1995), the tau neutrino (2000), and the Higgs boson (2012) have added further credence to the Standard Model. In addition, the Standard Model has predicted various properties of weak neutral currents and the W and Z bosons with great accuracy.

Today the Linear Collider Collaboration published its Technical Design Report [PDF] for the International Linear Collider (ILC) - a proposed 31-kilometre electron-positron collider that will both complement and advance beyond the physics of the Large Hadron Collider. In three consecutive ceremonies in Asia, Europe and the Americas, the authors officially handed the report over to the international oversight board for projects in particle physics, the International Committee for Future Accelerators (ICFA). The report presents the latest, most technologically advanced and most thoroughly scrutinized design for the ILC. The ILC will accelerate and collide electrons and their antiparticles, positrons. Collisions will occur roughly 7000 times per second at the collision energy of 500 GeV. Some 16,000 superconducting cavities will be needed to drive the ILC’s particle beams. The report also includes details of two state-of-the-art detectors that will record the collisions, as well as an extensive outline of the geological and civil engineering studies conducted for siting the ILC. “The Technical Design Report is an impressive piece of work that shows maturity, scrutiny and boldness," says Lyn Evans, director of the Linear Collider Collaboration. "The International Linear Collider should be next on the agenda for global particle physics.” Among other particles, the ILC will produce Higgs bosons and study their properties in detail to determine whether they are as predicted by the Standard Model. Will the Higgs particle be just the first of a family? Will nature be more complicated than a single “minimal” Higgs boson? And how does the Higgs interact with other particles? Japan is considering offering to host the ILC for the global collaboration, siting it in the mountains of Japan. They propose to begin with a Higgs Factory and extend it to higher energies in the future. The ILC brings together more than 1000 scientists and engineers from more than 100 universities and laboratories in over two dozen countries. Resources Download the Technical Design Report Read the press release from the International Linear Collider  Watch the webcast of the ILC handover event at CERN

New quadrupole magnets, which focus particle beams before collisions, are one of the key technologies for the High-Luminosity LHC (Image: CERN) This week more than 230 scientists and engineers from around the world met at CERN to discuss the High-Luminosity LHC – a major upgrade to the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that will increase its discovery potential from 2025.   After a four-year design study the project is now moving into its second phase, which will see the development of industrial prototypes for various parts of the accelerator. Luminosity is a crucial indicator of accelerator performance. It is proportional to the number of particles colliding within a defined amount of time. Since discoveries in particle physics rely on statistics, the greater the number of collisions, the more chances physicists have to see a particle or process that they have not seen before. The High-Luminosity LHC will increase the luminosity by a factor of 10, delivering 10 times more collisions than the LHC  would do over the same period of time. It will therefore provide more accurate measurements of fundamental particles and enable physicists to observe rare processes that occur below the current sensitivity level of the LHC.  The increase in luminosity will mean that physicists can study new phenomena discovered by the LHC, such as the Higgs boson, in more detail. The High-Luminosity LHC will produce 15 million Higgs bosons per year compared to the 1.2 million in total created at the LHC between 2011 and 2012. Upgrading the LHC is a challenging project that relies on several breakthrough technologies, which are currently under development. Some 1.2 km of the LHC will be replaced by these new technologies, which include cutting-edge 12 tesla superconducting quadrupole magnets, brand new superconducting radiofrequency cavities or electrical transfer lines, based on high temperature superconductors. The High-Luminosity LHC will use these pioneering technologies for the very first time, which will not only increase the discovery potential of the LHC but also act as proof-of-concept for future accelerators. All these technologies have been explored since 2011 in the  framework of the HiLumi LHC Design Study - partly financed by the European Commission's FP7 programme. HiLumi LHC brought together a large number of laboratories from CERN’s member states, as well as from Russia, Japan and the US. American institutes participated in the project with the support of the US LHC Accelerator Research Program (LARP), funded by the US Department of Energy. Some 200 scientists from 20 countries collaborated on this first successful phase. For a longer version of this article, see the CERN press release. Read more about the High-Luminosity LHC and its technologies.