MATTER IS MADE OF PARTICLES TOO SMALL TO BE SEEN. Rosemary Prater STEM 962: Final Presentation Framingham State University “Particle Fever has all the trimmings of a Hollywood blockbuster: an epic quest, memorable characters, a tension-filled climax and a huge crash sequence. There’s also an ending that begs for a sequel. It’s got a romantic angle, too: The movie is, at its heart, a love story between physicists and the elusive truths they pursue.” “The documentary takes viewers behind the scenes at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) outside Geneva, Switzerland, from early test runs to the 2012 success of finding the Higgs boson.” (Tarlach, Gemma 2014) CERN Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire", or European Council for Nuclear Research Picture Courtesy of CERN The Large Hadron Collider drives two beams of particles on a collision course around a 17-mile ring located more than 300 feet underground at the border of France and Switzerland. Picture Courtesy of CERN Particle Fever Vocabulary Higgs boson named for Peter Higgs, the Higgs boson is a special kind of particle. Fundamental particles have no mass, but once they interact with the Higgs field they gain mass. It was theorized in 1964, found in 2012 and proven in Higgs fields are everywhere, similar to magnetic fields, Higgs bosons are ripples in the field. neutrino: An electrically neutral, weakly interacting elementary subatomic particle. In Italian meaning little neutral one. It does not carry an electric charge. They are believed to have mass but their mass is so small that we have not been able to measure it as of yet. electron is a subatomic particle with a negative elementary electric charge quark is an elementary particle, they are the matter that makes up protons and neutrons. There are six kinds or flavors of quarks: up, down, charm, strange, bottom and top that combine into three generations with leptons. Lepton is an elementary particle, most commonly known for building electrons. They can be charged or neutral. There a 6 types grouped into 3 families also known as generations. The lightest and most stable matter is made up of the first generation of matter, known as electrons, and electron neutrinos The less stable or more heavier particles belong to the second generation muon, and muon neutrinos and third generation tau, and tau neutrinos. The Standard Model explains how the basic building blocks of matter interact, governed by four fundamental forces. Left Handed vs Right Handed neutrinos always spin opposite the linear motion this is known as a left handed neutrino. In theory antineutrinos are known as right handed (these have not been proven as of yet) Standard Particle Theory “All the particles that make up matter have mass — from the lightest, the electron, to the heaviest, the top quark — and can be left- or right-handed. Although the Standard Model cannot predict their masses, it does provide a mechanism whereby elementary particles acquire mass. This mechanism requires us to accept that the universe is filled with particles that we have not seen yet.” “ No matter how empty the vacuum looks, it is packed with particles called Higgs bosons that have zero spin (and are therefore neither left- or right-handed). Quantum field theory and Lorentz invariance show that when a particle is injected into the "vacuum", its handedness changes when it interacts with a Higgs boson. For example, a left-handed electron will become right-handed after the first collision, then left-handed following a second collision, and so on. Put simply, the electron cannot travel through the vacuum at the speed of light; it has to become massive. Similarly, muons collide with Higgs bosons more frequently than electrons, making them 200 times heavier than the electron, while the top quark interacts with the Higgs boson almost all the time.” (Murayama H. 2006) Cloud Chamber References Murayama, H. (2006). Origin Of Neutrino Mass. Progress in Particle and Nuclear Physics, 57(1), Tarlach, Gemma. “Quest for the Higgs Boson Hits the Silver Screen.” Discover 7 Mar Yeong, Debbie, Cloud Chamber. 2010, KL Wilayah Persekutuan, Malaysia Physics is Fun Web. 29 Apr.2014 Diagram of Cloud chamber credit Yeong, Debbie, Cloud Chamber. 2010