Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

“Strange?” Come closer, Brother Yan stared at the computer screen for a while, his eyebrows slightly wrinkled, "... It's strange, isn't the experiment we did with the 1-10GeV section collision? How come all the data is on 1TeV? ”

Brother Yan threw his gaze at Professor Greer for questioning.

The conversion between TeV and GeV is 1: 1000, equivalent to the particle beam flow in the collider tunnel, and the collision energy has reached 1000GeV. The 6GeV is sufficient to find the collision energy required for the five quark particles.

Looking for a particle in the 6GeV energy zone that drives collision energy to over 1000GeV, it's not a cannon that hits mosquitoes, it's a rocket that hits flies.

However, hearing the doubts of the harsh new perception, Professor Greer laughed and explained in a careless tone.

“As I said, the condition of the test track now is not a formal experiment. As for why it's so big, you have to understand CERN's love of getting this new toy. If it weren't for the limited budget for this experiment, they'd even be ready to show you guys a collision over the 10TeV energy zone. ”

To be honest, is to show off.

And it's the red fruit kind of bragging.

Imagine that theoretical physicists and high-energy physics laboratories around the world are focusing their attention here. If you don't take this opportunity to show off, aren't you blind to the billions spent expanding the orbit?

How can people know how awesome their machines are if they don't let the collider spin the particle clusters inside?

CERN does have bragging capital, however, and it is said that in extreme cases, an expanded Hadron Collider can even perform a 14TeV collision experiment. That is, each particle running in orbit will carry 7TeV of energy.

How horrible is this energy?

In many cases, this energy unit (based on the mass energy conversion formula) is also used to describe the mass of particles, such as about 1GeV for a hydrogen atom, compared to 125GeV for Higgs particles found in 12 years.

In horizontal comparison with peers, the limit of the Shangjing Positive and Negative Electronic Collider is about 5GeV, which is a whole order of magnitude short of TeV.

If you want to catch up with this energy unit, you can only expect Qin Island's CEPC to be finished, but that's 10 years from now.

“... I don't mean the experimental section is strange,” the ark's finger almost poked on the computer screen, "didn't you notice? There's an unusual impact here near 750GeV. ”

“It's not called an impact phenomenon, it's just a separate dual photon signal, but why it appears in the 750GeV energy zone is a bit strange.” Professor Greer touched his chin, "but strangely, it's not uncommon for this to happen, and we can always observe some special signals on the ATLAS probe, but the data on the statistical image may be just a 'murmur’. ”

“Is this common?” Staring at the anomaly on the screen, the ark still couldn't help but ask.

“It's quite common,” Brother Yan nodded, "all the signals from the proton beam collision, we know less than 1%. So we usually speculate, and then we experiment, and you get used to it if you stay here often. ”

High-energy physics is a very brilliant thing in itself.

Because existence below the atomic level is not “directly observable”, an important indicator - confidence - is involved in determining the real existence of a particle.

This is a statistical concept.

In high-energy physics experiments, a 3-fold standard deviation is referred to below as “signs”, more than 3-fold as “evidence”, and more than 5-fold as “discovery”. While the words "groundbreaking progress” and “major discoveries” often appear in the news, most cases are simply “signs”.

Based on this accepted theory, when confidence reaches 3sigma, it can hardly be counted as a “sign”.

A temporary peak of features does not explain anything.

This particle can only be identified as "discovered” if the experiment is repeated continuously and a particle is observed multiple times on different detectors, colliders, so that the confidence of the particle on multiple detectors is above 5sigma.

When I heard Brother Yan say this, the Ark didn't say anything more.

Pretty soon, the experiment continued.

A string of green dots spread densely over the image, most of them concentrated in the area below the 125GeV dividing line.

However, the point in the heart of the Ark where the 750GeV appears is still somewhat indelible, and attention is still drawn to that energy zone.

And then right here, suddenly another dot jumped in this position in the 750GeV energy zone.

And just then, the ark suddenly moved and looked at Professor Greer next to him and said, "What about the data on the CMS probe? ”

There are multiple detectors in one orbit, of which ATLAS and CMS are the most sensitive and have even been used to find dark matter.

There's a very simple way to test whether the anomaly he discovered was an illusion, that the same phenomenon was observed by both detectors at the same time.

Upon hearing the question of the Ark, Professor Greer answered with a slight hesitation and a slight expression of doubt.

“... the data collected by the CMS detector is the responsibility of the lab upstairs, and if you're curious, I can show you there after the experiment, but I can't walk away right now. ”

The ark went on to ask, "Will these test run impact data be recorded? ”

Professor Greer nodded: "Generally, it's archived, but it doesn't have much reference value. I can give you a copy if you need it, and it's not classified anyway. But I have to remind you that this unpublished experimental data is impossible if you want to cite it in your paper. ”

Standing beside him, Brother Yan asked curiously: "What did you find? ”

The ark thought about it, and eventually stuck to its point of view, and said, “I always feel like there's something wrong with the data in the 750GeV. Even from a statistical point of view, describing this obvious bump as a random event always feels a little tense. ”

Brother Yan joked: “From a mathematician's perspective? ”

Ark: “Kind of. ”

Brother Yan sighed: “I know your research direction is mathematical physics, but I have to remind you that although mathematics is an important tool for studying theoretical physics, not all physical phenomena must conform to mathematical laws. From a theoretical physics point of view, the number 750GeV... is too heavy to know that the Higgs particle is only 125GeV. Maybe you think you found a new particle, but to me it's just a two-photon signal, maybe not even a collision at all. ”

Shot on the shoulder of the ark, Brother Yan continued, “Don't bother with the energy zone after 10GeV, we're looking for five quarks of particles this time. If it's an obsessive-compulsive disorder, you can rest assured that you won't see 750 GeV again in the experiment for a while. ”