Scientists working at the world’s largest physics experiment have reported the most precise measurement ever of the most massive elementary particle we know, and while the discovery sounds puzzling, it’s no exaggeration to say it will have implications across the universe.
Greek philosopher Empedocles Estimated to be 2,400 years old It was thought that matter would break down into smaller and smaller pieces until only air, earth, fire, and water remained. Since the early 20th century, physicists have been breaking matter down into smaller and smaller pieces, finding a variety of subatomic particles instead. Filling up the zoo.
Top Quark
Modern particle physicists focus not on “smaller” particles, but on elusive ones.
High energy particles often decay into particles with lower energy. The greater the difference between the energy of the particle and the energy of the decay products, the shorter the time the particle exists in its original form and the faster it decays. Due to mass-energy equivalence, particles with higher mass are also particles with higher energy. And the most massive particle that scientists have discovered so far is the top quark.
10 times the size of a water molecule, about 3 times the size of a copper atom, and a complete Caffeine molecule.
As a result, the top quark becomes highly unstable and can split into lighter, more stable particles within 10 minutes.−25 Seconds.
The mass of the top quark is very important in physics. The mass of a particle is equal to the sum of the masses it receives from multiple sources. An important source of all elementary particles is the Higgs field, which permeates the entire universe. The “field” is like an ocean of energy, and excitations of the field are called particles. Thus, for example, excitations of the Higgs field are called Higgs particles, and electrons are thought of as excitations of the “electron field”.
All these fields interact with each other in specific ways. For example, when the “electron field” interacts with the Higgs field at energies much lower than 100 GeV, the electron particle gains some mass. The same is true for other elementary particles. (GeV, or gigaelectronvolt, is the unit of energy used in the context of elementary particles. 1 Joule = 6.24 billion GeV.) François Englert and Peter Higgs’ elucidation of this mechanism earned them the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics.
The top quark is the most massive elementary particle because the Higgs boson interacts with it most strongly, so by measuring the top quark’s mass as precisely as possible, physicists can learn a lot about the Higgs boson as well.
“Physicists are intrigued by the top quark’s mass because there is something unusual about it,” said Nirmal Raj, a particle theorist and assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru. Hindu“On the one hand, it is the closest thing to the mass of the Higgs particle, and is what we would ‘naturally’ expect before any measurement. On the other hand, it is the closest thing to the mass of the Higgs particle, and is what we would ‘naturally’ expect before any measurement. [particles like it] Because it is much lighter, this leads us to wonder if the top quark is actually a weird one, rather than a ‘natural’ species.”
The universe as we know it
But the rabbit hole goes even deeper.
Physicists are also keen to study the Higgs particle because of the mass it acquires through interactions with other Higgs particles. The key is that the Higgs particle is more massive than expected. This means that the Higgs field is more energetic than expected. And because the Higgs field is omnipresent in the universe, it can be said that the universe is more energetic than expected. This “prediction” comes from calculations that physicists have performed, and there is no reason to think that they are wrong. Why is the Higgs field so energetic?
Physicists also have theorized about how the Higgs field originally formed (at the beginning of the universe), and if their theories are correct, there’s a small but non-zero chance that one day in the future, the Higgs field will undergo some kind of self-regulation, reducing its energy and dramatically changing the universe.
They know that the field currently has some potential energy, and there is a way to reduce some of it and make it more stable. There are two ways to get to this stable state. One is for the field to first gain some energy, then lose it, and then gain more energy — like climbing up one side of a mountain and entering a deeper valley on the other side. The other is for an event called quantum tunneling to occur. When this event occurs, the potential energy of the field “tunnels” through the mountain, rather than climbing up the mountain and falling into the valley on the other side.
This is why Stephen Hawking said in 2016 that the Higgs particle could mean “the end of the universe” as we know it. Even if the Higgs field were only slightly stronger than it is now, it would destroy atoms of most chemical elements, taking stars, galaxies, and life on Earth with it. But even if Hawking was technically right, other physicists were quick to say that the frequency of tunneling is about one in ten.100 Year.
Higgs boson mass — 126 GeV/c2 (unit of elementary particles)—also Just right Any other value would cause the “end” to occur, in order to keep the universe in its current state. These finely tuned values are obviously interesting, and physicists are I want to know This is where natural processes contribute. The top quark is part of this picture because it is the most massive particle, and in some sense the Higgs boson’s closest friend.
“Precisely measuring the mass of the top quark has implications on whether our universe will experience tunnel annihilation,” Dr Raj said.
Discovery of the top quark
Physicists discovered the top quark in 1995 at a particle accelerator called the Tevatron in the United States, and measured its mass to be 151-197 GeV/c.2The Tevatron was closed in 2011, but physicists continued to analyze the data it collected and update its values. Three years later Up to 174.98 GeV/c2Other experiments and research groups have come up with more precise values over time. On June 27, physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Europe said: The most accurate numbers to date: 172.52 GeV/c2.
Since the top quark’s lifetime is around 10 years, it is difficult to measure its mass.-twenty five It takes a few seconds to smash the particles. Typically, a particle smasher produces a super-hot soup of particles. If a top quark is present in this soup, it will quickly decay into a specific group of lighter particles. Detectors monitor these events, tracking and recording their characteristics if they occur. Finally, computers collect this data, which physicists analyze and then Rebuild Physical properties of the top quark.
Scientists rely on sophisticated mathematical models to learn what to expect at each stage of this process, and they must contend with many uncertainties. Many of the devices used in these machines also incorporate cutting-edge technology, and as engineers further refine them, physicists’ results improve.
Researchers will now incorporate the top quark’s mass measurement into calculations that improve our understanding of particles in the universe. Some researchers will also use the measurement to find an even more precise value. Dr. Raji says that precisely measuring the top quark’s mass is also key to knowing whether other particles with masses close to that of the top quark are hiding in the data.
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