january 2011 david toback, texas a&m university texas junior science and humanities symposium 1...

January 2011 David Toback, Texas A&M UniversityTexas Junior Science and Humanities

Symposium

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David TobackTexas A&M UniversityTexas Junior Science and Humanities Symposium

January 2011

The Big Bang, Dark Matter and

Searching for New Particlesat the

Large Hadron Collider (LHC)


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AbstractPhysicists have entered a golden age of

science. We are starting to be able to answer some of the most exciting questions ever asked, including questions that touch on the Big Bang, the fundamental building blocks of nature, and the Dark Matter that fills the Universe. There is good reason to believe that by both pointing our telescopes and satellites to study the heavens and using the world’s highest energy particle accelerators we can discover how the biggest things in the Universe (like the Universe itself) and the smallest things (like quarks and electrons) are inextricably linked at the most fundamental levels. Perhaps a new fundamental particle is just around the corner to be discovered.


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Outline•Why is today such an exciting

time to be a scientist?–Cosmology (Big Bang)–Dark Matter–Particle Physics and the LHC

•Evidence for the Big Bang•Evidence for Dark Matter•Can we discover Dark Matter

with giant accelerators like the LHC?


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Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Edwin Hubble Albert Einstein


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The Big Bang

Inquiring Minds Want

to Know

What is the scientific

evidence that a Big Bang

occurred 13.5 billion years

ago?


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What did Hubble See?

Hubble observed lots of galaxies with the world’s

best telescopeHe noticed that All the

far away ones are moving away from us

VERY quickly


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So What?

All the galaxies will come from a single point in

space ~13.5 billion years ago

Name this time The Big Bang

A moment of Creation

What happened in the past? Run the clock backward in time


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The Big Bang occurred, then

what? How did we get

from the bang to the Universe we

have today?


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A Brief History of Time• Zero

• One millionth of one second after the Bang

• A few minutes

• A few hundred thousand years

• 100 million to 1 billion years

• 9 billion years

• ~13.5 billion years

• The Big Bang produces lots of particles

• Quarks combine to form protons and neutrons

• Protons and Neutrons combine to form the nucleus of an atom

• Nuclei and electrons combine to form atoms

• Atoms combine to form Stars and Galaxies

• The Earth and our solar system forms

• You attend this symposium


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Is that the whole story?

Far from it!


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Dark Matter

What’s the

evidence for Dark

matter?


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As the Solar System Turns

Gravity! Newton figured this out and you can calculate everything yourself

now!


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Is that what our galaxy, the Milky Way, looks like?

Does it spin like our solar system? Closest stars go around

quickest?


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How the Galaxy Turns


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Lots of Dark Matter out there!

What’s the Matter in the

Universe?

No clue what this stuff is…


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The Known Particles– No known

particles have the properties of Dark Matter

– Other credible reasons to believe there are new fundamental particles to be discovered

– Maybe Dark Matter is a New Particle!


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Astronomy, Cosmology and Particle Physics: The Dark Matter in the Universe is made up of LOTS of particles that we

haven’t discovered yet!Best Guess: Got created in the Early

Universe like everything else and is still here today!

Big Bang!

Then Universe gets bigger

Dark Matter = New Particle?

High energy collisions between particles in the

early Universe If they created Dark Matter, maybe we can also!


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Particle PhysicsHow might Giant Particle

Accelerators Help us Answer This Question?

Tevatron at Fermilab

Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

at CERN


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Can we Make and Discover Dark Matter?

•High energy collisions between particles in the Early Universe

•Recreate the conditions like they were RIGHT AFTER the Big Bang

•If we can produce Dark Matter in a collision then we can STUDY it


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High Energy Collisions New particles

Tevatron ≈10 ps after the Big Bang

LHC ≈1 ps after the Big Bang

Dark M

atter P

article

Dar

k M

atte

r Pa

rticle

Detector

Proton Anti-Proton

Ok… Its more complicated than this

since Dark Matter Particles don’t easily

interact with detectors…

Nor do we usually produce them directly


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Example DetectorSurround the collision

point with a detector and look at the stuff pops out after a

collision as it interacts with the various

components

Powerful multi-purpose detector

Really Big with LOTS of cool electronics and

other toys!

10 MetersTall!

30 Meters Long!


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Where in the world is the LHC?

Geneva

France

SwitzerlandJura Mountains

100 yardsUnderground!

The accelerator

Actually… It’s down here


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Another view of the LHC

CMS

ATLAS

27 km in Circumference!

One of the largest and the most complex scientific

instrument ever conceived & built by humankind

pp

Collides high energy protons

Two huge detectors

Lake LemanGeneva Airport


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What does it DO?Accelerates protons to REALLY high energies, then bashes them together


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High Energy CollisionsSo… The LHC makes

really high energy collisions that might produce Dark Matter so we can discover it

LHC is creating the conditions like they were RIGHT AFTER the Big Bang

Can study Cosmology, Particle Physics and Astronomy with one experiment!


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Interested in learning more?

•Physics department now offers a course entitled “Big Bang, Black Holes, No Math” – Covers Stephen Hawking’s

“Brief History of Time”

•More about what you heard today, plus much more!– Cosmology – How do Stars form?– Black Holes– General Relativity– Quantum Mechanics– Particle Physics– Etc…. Astronomy/

Physics 109


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Conclusions

• It’s an incredibly exciting time to be a scientist!

• Astronomy, Cosmology and Particle Physics are all coming together!

• Starting to understand the Big Bang and Dark Matter!

• If our understanding is correct, a major discovery may be just around the corner at the LHC!

Wanna join us? We need your

help!

january 2011 david toback, texas a&m university texas junior science and humanities symposium 1...

Documents

david toback texas

humanities symposium

symposium slide

big bang evidence

time slide

big bang inquiring minds

golden age of science

lhc evidence