The Particle at the End of the Universe: How the Hunt for the Higgs Boson Leads Us to the Edge of a New World (52 page)

discovery of, 19

and evidence for the Higgs boson, 96

generations of,
49

and Higgs decay modes,
171,
173

mass of,
49,
49–50, 53–54, 143,
294

and neutron decay,
47

and OPERA experiment findings, 195–97

and particle detectors, 104–5,
109

and particle spin, 286, 292

and proton decay, 46–48

types of, 48

neutrons

and atomic structure, 10–11, 42–43

constituent quarks, 294

mass of, 60, 145

neutron decay, 46–47, 131–34,
230

and quarks, 51

and symmetry-breaking, 154–55

and total mass of ordinary matter, 247

and weak interactions, 32

neutron stars, 124, 200–201

Neveu, André, 262

New Scientists,
200

news media.
See
media and public attention to physics

Newton, Isaac, 21, 118–20, 123, 125, 222

Newtonian mechanics, 128

New York Times,
203

Nielsen, Holger, 261

Nobel, Alfred, 210, 237

Nobel Dreams
(Taubes), 179–80

Nobel Prizes in Physics

and the Bevatron, 56

and Brookhaven National Lab, 67

for cosmic acceleration, 255

criteria for selection, 210–12

for dark energy, 221

establishment of, 210

for gluon fusion, 168

for hadron discoveries, 30, 106

for Higgs boson, 239–41

Lamb on, 50

for neutrinos types, 19

for parity violation, 155

for photoelectric effect, 127

for quark discovery, 66–67

for relativity confirmation, 124

for symmetries of weak interactions, 158

for W and Z bosons discoveries, 62, 80, 237

and World War II, 209–10

Not Even Wrong
(blog), 202

nuclear forces, 30–31, 117, 213.
See also
strong nuclear force; weak nuclear force

nuclear fusion, 272

nuclei of atoms, 28, 42

nucleons, 42

nucleosynthesis, 247

Oliver, John, 189–91

O’Neill, Gerard K., 62

Oort, Jan, 244

OPERA experiment, 195–96

Oppenheimer, Robert, 156

Organisation Européenne pour la Recherche Nucléaire, 61

Ørsted, Hans Christian, 121

Ouellette, Jennifer, 204, 205

“Out of Control” (report), 71

outreach, 207–8

Overbye, Dennis, 203

paleontology, 93–94

parity, 158, 231–32

Park, Bob, 72

Particle Fever
(film), 207–8

partons, 101–2,
102,
129

Pastore, John, 269

Pauli, Wolfgang, 46–47, 155–56, 212, 228–29

Pauli exclusion principle, 131

“Payload for Antimatter Matter Exploration and Light-nuclei Astrophysics” (PAMELA), 200–202

peer-review, 192–95

periodic table of the elements, 10

Perlmutter, Saul, 255

photoelectric effect, 127, 164

photons

and electromagnetism, 29

and electron orbits, 145

and electroweak unification, 235

and field/particle duality, 125–26

and gravity, 143

and Higgs decay modes, 16,
171,
173,
173,
184–88, 202, 249–50

and the Higgs mechanism, 224

masslessness of, 143

and neutron decay, 132–33

and particle detectors, 96, 104, 108–10

and particle spin,
53,
285, 286, 288

and the photoelectric effect, 127

and quantum field theory, 33

and Schwinger’s model, 231

and supersymmetry, 258,
259

Physical Review Letters,
223, 224

Physics Letters,
223–24

Picozza, Piergiorgio, 201

“pileup,” 102, 182, 185

pions, 295

Pius XII, Pope, 22

Planck, Max, 126–27, 128

Planck scale, 254, 260

Planck’s constant, 284

planetary motion, 118–20

Polchinski, Joseph, 265

politics, 1–2, 17–18, 24, 69–73, 82

Politzer, David, 30

Polyakov, Alexander, 228

positrons

discovery of, 44–46,
46,
97

and linear accelerators, 66

and PAMELA experiment, 200–201

and particle detector findings, 104

potential energy, 140

Preposterous Universe
(blog), 198

“Primeval Atom” theory, 22

probability, 111, 129, 167–68,
168. See also
statistical analysis

Project Exploration, 93–94

proton-antiproton colliders, 80, 90

protons

and atomic structure, 10–11, 42

constituent particles, 101, 166, 294

energies achieved in the LHC, 86–88

and mass/energy equivalency, 57–60

mass of, 60, 145

and neutron decay, 133–34

and particle accelerators, 58, 63

and quarks, 51, 67

relativity effects, 101–2,
102

and symmetry-breaking, 154–55

and total mass of ordinary matter, 247

Proton Synchrotron, 61

publicity and public relations.
See
media and public attention to physics

quanta, 126

A
Quantum Diaries Survivor
(blog), 198

quantum field theory

and field values, 253

and the Higgs field, 32–34

and infinite-answer problem, 229

and neutron decay, 131–33

and particle accelerators, 57

and particle spin, 285, 288

and spacetime dimensionality, 263

summarized, 36

vibrations in fields, 131–33

and Ward identities, 233

and wave functions, 129

quantum gravity, 254, 262, 264, 267

quantum mechanics

analogy for, 128–30

and atomic structure, 41–42

and black hole radiation, 211

Coleman on, 281

and energy/wavelength connection, 125–26

and experimental results, 14

and field/particle duality, 125–26

and field theory, 33

fuzziness of, 34

and gravity, 25, 29

and particle spin, 129, 283–85

and probability, 111

and spontaneous symmetry-breaking, 227

and statistical analysis, 178–81

and virtual particles, 101

quantum uncertainty,
35

quarks

and atomic structure, 10–11, 28

color labels, 50–51,
51,
149, 153, 172, 216, 257, 259, 294

and connection fields, 153

and creation of Higgs bosons, 166–67, 169

and dark matter,
251

described, 293

discovery of, 19

and Feynman diagrams,
168

and Higgs decay modes,
171,
171–74, 187

and mass, 53, 143, 145,
294

and neutron decay, 133–34

and nuclear forces, 30

and particle detectors, 96–97, 103, 104

and particle spin, 285, 286, 291–92

and proton collisions,
102

and proton structure, 101

and quantum field theory, 129

quark-gluon plasma, 97–98

and the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), 67

and resting value of Higgs field, 146

and the Standard Model, 26,
51,
198

and the strong nuclear force, 41

and supersymmetry,
259

and virtual particles, 51, 101

See also
specific types of quarks

quench, 76

Rabi, I. I., 48

radiation and radioactivity, 29, 41, 131–32, 250

radio waves, 122

Ramond, Pierre, 262

Randall, Lisa, 265

Reagan, Ronald, 69

reconciliation, 218–21

Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider (RHIC), 67, 69

relativity

and “aether” theory, 139

and creation of Higgs bosons, 166

effect on protons, 101–2,
102

and gravity, 29

and the Higgs mechanism, 225

Nobel Prizes for, 124

and particle mass, 58, 142–44

and resting value of Higgs field, 139, 273

and superconductivity, 215

and symmetry, 220–21, 223

and velocities in the LHC, 86–87

relic abundance, 246

religion and physics, 21–22, 22–24

renormalization, 229, 235, 236, 239