The Large Hadron Collider - Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe (eBook)
It may at first seem that the world of subatomic physics is far
removed from our every day lives. Isn`t it all just a waste of time
and taxpayers` money? Hopefully, all who read this book will come
to a different conclusion. Collider physics is all about our
origins, and this aspect alone makes it worthy of our very best
attention. The experiments conducted within the vast collider
chambers are at the forefront of humanity`s quest to unweave the
great tapestry that is the universe. Everything is connected.
Within the macrocosm is the microcosm. By knowing how matter is
structured, how atoms and elementary particles interact, and what
forces control the interactions between the particles, we discover
further clues as to why the universe is the way it is, and we
uncover glimpses of how everything came into being. The Large
Hadron Collider (LHC), in the process of coming online at CERN, is
the world`s largest and most complex machine. It represents the
pinnacle of human ingenuity, and its physical characteristics,
costs, and workings astound us at every turn.We are literally
humbled by the machine that has been produced through a grand
international collaboration of scientists. This book is about what
those scientists hope to discover with the LHC, for hopes do run
high, and there is much at stake. Careers, reputations and
prestigious science prizes will be realized, and possibly lost, in
the wake of the results that the LHC will produce. And there are
risks, real and imagined. The LHC will probe the very fabric of
matter and it will help us understand the very weft and the weave
of the universe.
From the reviews: "Beech (Univ. of Regina, Canada) has written this work for general readers who are interested in the construction and purpose of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). ... it provides a very good description of the physics that the LHC hopes to explore. One can consider the work an examination of modern particle physics and cosmology that uses the LHC as a unifier. ... Summing Up: Recommended. General readers and lower-division undergraduates." (E. Kincanon, Choice, Vol. 48 (5), January, 2011)
Dr. Martin Beech is a full professor of astronomy at Campion College at The University of Regina in Saskatchewan, Canada. He has published many scientific research papers on stellar structure and evolution and several books on astronomy. Asteroid 12343 has been named in recognition of his research on meteors and meteorites. This is Beech's third book for Springer. He has already published Rejuvenating the Sun and Avoiding Other Global Catastrophes (2008) and Terraforming: The Creating of Habitable Worlds (2009).
Preface ... 6 Contents ... 9 About the Author ... 12 1 The Story of Matter ... 13 A Few Searching Questions ... 13 The Smallest of Things ... 17 Mysterium Cosmographicum ... 21 A Particle Primer ... 23 Thomson's Plum Pudding and an Unexpected Rebound ... 24 The Quantum World and the Bohr Atom ... 27 The New Quantum Mechanics ... 33 Exclusion ... 35 Fermi's Little Neutron ... 36 Three Quarks for Muster Mark ... 41 Building the Universe ... 43 The Matter Alphabet ... 43 We Are of the Stars ... 44 The Hubble Deep Field ... 50 Moving Forwards ... 52 2 The Worlds Most Complicated Machine ... 53 The End of the Beginning ... 54 Disappointment and Setback ... 58 Court Case Number 1:2008cv00136 ... 60 Afterwards ... 62 Overview: A Protons Journey ... 63 The Journey to the LHC ... 68 Collider Basics ... 69 The Detectors ... 74 3 The Standard Model, the Higgs, and Beyond ... 83 Generation the First An Acrostic ... 83 Feeling the Force ... 86 The Higgs Field Achieving Mass ... 90 Feynman Diagrams ... 91 Searching for the Higgs ... 94 Supersymmetry ... 98 Exotica: Going Up, Going Down ... 100 4 The Big Bang and the First 380,000 Years ... 103 The Big Bang ... 107 The Critical Density and ... 110 The Microwave Background ... 111 Primordial Nucleosynthesis ... 115 Inflation, Flatness, Horizons, and a Free Lunch ... 117 The QuarkGluon Plasma ... 122 ALICE: In Experimental Wonderland ... 125 Matter/Antimatter: It Matters ... 127 Getting to the Bottom of Things ... 129 5 Dark Matters ... 132 Interstellar Matters ... 133 Where Are We ... 137 Unraveling the Nebula Mystery ... 139 The Galaxy Zoo ... 141 The Local Group ... 143 Galaxy Clusters ... 144 Wheres the Missing Mass ... 146 All in a Spin: Dark Matter Found ... 148 Gravitational Lenses and Anamorphic Galaxies ... 153 Some Dark Matter Candidates ... 158 The Neutralino ... 158 Looking for MACHOs ... 160 DAMA Finds WIMPS, Maybe ... 160 CDMS Sees Two, Well, Maybe ... 162 Bubbles at COUPP ... 162 CHAMPs and SIMPs ... 164 PAMELA Finds an Excess ... 166 Fermi's Needle in a Haystack ... 167 ADMX ... 168 Euclids Dark Map ... 168 The MOND Alternative ... 170 Dark Stars and Y(4140) ... 171 6 Dark Energy and an Accelerating Universe ... 174 The Measure of the Stars ... 176 An Expanding Universe ... 178 Death Throes and Distance ... 180 Future Sun Take One ... 181 The Degenerate World of White Dwarfs ... 183 Future Sun Take Two ... 186 The Case of IK Pegasus B ... 188 High-Z Supernova Surveys ... 190 Dark Energy and CDM Cosmology ... 191 A Distant Darkness ... 195 Testing Copernicus ... 197 7 The Waiting Game ... 199 Hoping for the Unexpected ... 199 Massive Star Evolution ... 200 The Strange Case of RXJ1856.5-3754 and Pulsar 3C58 ... 208 Small, Dark, and Many Dimensioned ... 213 This Magnet Has Only One Pole ... 221 These Rays Are Truly Cosmic ... 224 Looking Forward to LHCf ... 228 The King Is Dead Long Live the King ... 229 Appendix A Units and Constants ... 233 Appendix B Acronym List ... 235 Appendix C Glossary of Technical Terms ... 238 Index ... 242
Inhaltsangabe
The Story of Matter.- LHC: The World's Largest Maching.- The Standard Model.- The Big Bang.- Dark Matter.- Ever Bigger, Ever Faster.- Back to CERN.- Technical Glossary of Terms.- Further Reading.- Index.
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