"Strange?" Yan Xinjue walked over and stared at the computer screen for a while. He then frowned and said, "… It's really strange. Didn't we do an experiment with 1-10 GeV collisions? How come the data is over 1 TeV? "
Yan Xinjue looked at Professor Grayle with a questioning gaze.
The conversion between TeV and GeV was 1: 1000, which was equivalent to the particle beam in the collider tunnel. The collision energy had reached 1000 GeV. The collision energy needed to find the pentaquark was 6 GeV.
In order to find a particle in the 6 GeV energy zone, the collision energy was more than 1000 GeV. This was like shooting a mosquito with a cannon, it was like shooting a fly with a rocket.
However, when Professor Grayer heard Yan Xinjue's question, he laughed and explained in a nonchalant tone.
"As I said, we are testing the condition of the track. It is not an official experiment. As for why it's so big, you have to understand CERN's love for this new toy. If it were not for the limited budget for this experiment, they would have even shown you the collision energy in the 10 TeV energy zone. "
In other words, he was showing off.
It was the kind of show off.
Imagine the world's theoretical physicists and particle physics laboratories focusing their attention on this place. If they did not take this opportunity to show off, they would have wasted the billions of dollars they spent on the track expansion.
If they did not let the collider explode, how could they let others know how powerful their machine was?
However, CERN did have the capital to show off. Apparently, under extreme circumstances, the expanded Hadron Collider could even achieve 14 TeV collisions. In other words, each particle in orbit would carry 7 TeV of energy.
How terrifying was this energy?
In many cases, this energy unit was also used to describe the mass of particles. For example, the mass of a hydrogen atom was about 1 GeV, and the Higgs particle discovered in 2012 was 125 GeV.
The limit of the Beijing Positron Collider was about 5 GeV, which was an order of magnitude away from the energy unit of TeV.
If they wanted to catch up to this energy unit, they could only wait for the completion of Qin Island's CEPC, but that would be ten years later.
"… I don't mean that the energy section of the experiment is strange." Lu Zhou's finger almost poked the computer screen. "Didn't you guys notice? There's an unusual impact near 750 GeV here. "
"This isn't a collision phenomenon, it's just a single two-photon signal. But why would it appear in the 750 GeV energy zone is a bit strange." Professor Grayer rubbed his chin and said, "But even though it's strange, it's not uncommon. We can always observe some special signals on the ATLAS detector, but the data reflected on the statistical image may just be 'noise'."
"Is this a common situation?" Lu Zhou stared at the anomaly on the screen and couldn't help but ask.
"It's quite common." Yan Xinjue nodded and said, "We don't even understand 1% of the signals produced by the proton beam collision. That's why we usually come to a conclusion and then verify it through experiments. You'll get used to it if you stay here often. "
Particle physics itself was a very metaphysical thing.
Because the existence below the atomic level could not be "directly observed", in order to determine the real existence of a particle, it involved a very important indicator – confidence.
This was a statistical concept.
In particle physics experiments, a standard deviation of less than 3 times was called a "sign", a standard deviation of more than 3 times was called "evidence", and a standard deviation of more than 5 times was called a "discovery". Although words such as "breakthroughs" and "major discoveries" often appeared in the news, most of the time, they were just "signs".
Based on this recognized theory, when the confidence reached 3 sigma, it could barely be regarded as a "sign".
A temporary characteristic peak did not mean anything.
As long as the experiment was repeated and the particle was observed multiple times on different detectors and colliders, the particle could only be confirmed as a "discovery" when the confidence of the particle reached more than 5 sigma on multiple detectors.
When Lu Zhou heard Yan Xinjue say this, he didn't say anything else.
Soon after, the experiment continued.
A series of green dots spread out on the image, and most of the dots were concentrated in the region below the 125GeV boundary.
However, Lu Zhou was still worried about the 750GeV dot, so his attention was still focused on the energy region.
Suddenly, another dot jumped to the 750GeV energy region.
Suddenly, Lu Zhou looked at Professor Grayer and asked, "What about the data on the CMS detector?"
There were many detectors on one track, among which the ATLAS and CMS detectors were the most sensitive. They were even used to search for dark matter.
There was a very simple way to verify if the anomaly was an illusion, which was if the same phenomenon was observed by two detectors at the same time.
When Professor Grayer heard Lu Zhou's question, he paused for a second and replied with a confused expression.
"… The data collected by the CMS detector is handled by the laboratory upstairs. If you're curious, I can take you there after the experiment, but I can't leave right now."
Lu Zhou then asked, "Will the impact data from these test runs be recorded?"
Professor Grayer nodded and said, "Normally, it will be archived, but it doesn't have much reference value. If you want, I can make a copy for you. It's not confidential anyway. However, I have to remind you that it's impossible to use this kind of unpublished experimental data in your thesis. "
Standing next to him, Yan Shixiong asked curiously, "What did you find?"
Lu Zhou thought for a bit and insisted on his own opinion. He said, "I feel like there's something wrong with the 750GeV energy region. Even from a statistical point of view, it's a bit far-fetched to describe this bump as a random event. "
Yan Xinjue joked, "From a mathematician's point of view?"
Lu Zhou, "Sort of."
Yan Xinjue sighed and said, "I know your research direction is mathematical physics, but I have to remind you that although mathematics is an important tool for theoretical physics, not all physical phenomena conform to mathematical laws. From a theoretical physics point of view, the number 750GeV … is too much. You have to know that the Higgs particle is only 125GeV. Maybe you think you found a new particle, but in my opinion, it's just a two-photon signal. There might not even be a collision. "
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