The CMS team have been searching for exotic long-lived particles. Adding a new algorithm to their system for their latest run has increased the results gained from less data.
Take a look at the update in detail: Continue reading
Students from 2 schools got the opportunity to ask 8 CERN scientists from 4 team.
The students chatted about the quarks, quantum mechanics, the “cosmological constant problem”, simulations and of course, what would happen if you walked into a particle accelerator when it was running. The open Chat meant it was quick and easy for aspiring physicists to drop in and find out about CERN life.
The CMS detector uses a huge solenoid magnet to bend the paths of particles from collisions in the Large Hadron Collider.
The CMS team gave us an exciting update from team members Joel and Vichayanun:
The CMS collaboration has seen evidence of a rare mechanism to produce 4 top quarks!
The simultaneous production of 4 top quarks is predicted by the standard model. As a bonus, the process is sensitive to many hypothetical undiscovered particles and forces that could subtly change how often 4 quarks are made (and how they behave). The new result has a significance of 3.9 standard deviations. That means that the chances of the result being a statistical fluke are very small – only about 1 in 20,000!
Top quarks are elusive particles. It is so rare that, on average, just 1 out of hundreds of millions of collisions produces a top quark (or, to put it another way: for each collision producing 4 top quarks, we expect 4,000 collisions producing Higgs bosons!).
So how do you detect 4 top quark events? And why are they such an important piece of the piece in our understanding of elementary particles?
Hi! My name is Max, and I was a physics and maths student at sixth form in the UK. From Autumn 2023, I’ll be studying physics and philosophy at the University of Bristol to try and decode reality itself…
You can see me with my friends in the picture on the right! (I’m the one with the hair in the middle).
Yesterday, we got exclusive access to the CMS facility!
It was a great chance for students to discover what’s behind the doors of CERN and learn more about the facilities they use. But don’t worry if you missed out, you can catch up below!
Highlights of the Tour
17.17 – The underground gas room
Yesterday, the first CERN Chat went live!
It was a great chance for students to ask about common misconceptions with nuclear physics and all things CERN.
Is radioactivity harmful at CERN? 
A common misconception is that radiation is always harmful and can have adverse effects on our health – but the STEM professionals at CERN tell us that this is not the case!
This month, we’re kicking off the CERN Zone!
You can get a behind-the-scenes look at cutting-edge physics research and see how modern science is conducted!
