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Posts by: Hamish Johnston
Has CDMS glimpsed dark matter?
Dark matter search results. The best fit to the CDMS result is the located at the black asterisk. The Xenon exclusion region is to the right of the green dashed lines. (Courtesy: CDMS)
By Hamish Johnston
Physicists working on the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) may have spotted three dark-matter particles in data from a detector deep beneath the North Woods of Minnesota. The measurement has a statistical significance of about 3σ – which is a long way from the gold standard of 5σ that usually heralds the discovery of a new particle. That said, this result is the best evidence yet that dark matter could be detected directly as it passes through the Earth.
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CMS in all its glory
Admiring CMS.
By Hamish Johnston at CERN
Today I had the immense good fortune of seeing the insides of the CMS detector at CERN.
The huge detector was pulled open and I could see all the various layers that are used to track the vast numbers of particles that are produced when protons collide at the Large Hadron Collider.
Unlike earlier photos of the detector that were taken when it was being built, the beamline is still intact as it passes through the CMS – a plain black conduit suspended many metres above the floor. You can see the beamline poking out from the centre of the detector in the photo on the right.
Imperial College’s Jim Virdee was our tour guide, and he told us how several military technologies from the former Soviet Union have been put to good use in the detector. These include brass shell casings that were melted down to make components for the detector.
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Physics World and friends triumph at Big Science Pub Quiz
Cheers from the winners: (left to right) Neil Alford, Jodie Melbourne, Margaret Harris, Hamish Johnston (holding the Higgs boson), Arash Mostofi, Tushna Commissariat, Karl Sandeman, Matin Durrani and Pakatip Ruenraroengsak.
By Hamish Johnston
Last night a crack team of Physics World journalists plus scientists from Imperial College London cleaned up at the Big Science Pub Quiz. We won by racking up an impressive 31 points in the main competition and also triumphed in the build-it-from-tin-foil round. Team member Margaret Harris also bagged the first shout-out round by identifying the Higgs boson from cryptic clues – her reward was a plush toy Higgs boson.
When will quantum communications blast off?
Will quantum communications be sent to the ISS? (Courtesy: NASA)
By Hamish Johnston
I think it’s safe to say that quantum communications between satellites and ground-based stations should be possible. Optical signals have already been sent 144 km through the air between ground stations at sea level. More recently, quantum communications have been achieved between an aircraft in flight and a ground station 20 km distant.
While quantum communications have been sent comparable distances via optical fibre, it’s unlikely that the fragile single photons used in such missives would survive an ocean crossing unscathed. Therefore if technologies such as quantum key distribution cryptography are to become truly practical, satellites must be involved.
Honey at the asymptotic limit
By Hamish Johnston
What’s the buzz in physics this week? Forget dark matter, it’s honey – or rather the strange properties of this tasty fluid.
If you have a sweet tooth (or an interest in the Rayleigh–Plateau instability) check out this paper in Physical Review Letters.
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Institute of Physics launches new blog
Jim Al Khalili joins the ranks of physicsfocus bloggers.
By Hamish Johnston
The Institute of Physics has just launched a new blog called physicsfocus that is described as “an online space for the physics community to read about and comment on issues that concern them”.
First light at the NOvA neutrino detector
Burst of particles created when a muon interacts with the NOvA Far Detector. (Courtesy: NOvA collaboration)
By Hamish Johnston
Deep in the North Woods in Minnesota the snow is starting to melt, and the giant NOvA Far Detector is coming to life. Designed to register the arrival of neutrinos that will be created 810 km away at Fermilab near Chicago, the detector has recorded its first 3D images. These are not of neutrinos, but of the trajectories of fast-moving particles that are created in a process that begins with a cosmic ray colliding with Earth’s atmosphere.
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Listen to our latest podcast about quantum computing
By Hamish Johnston
One of the most enjoyable parts of my job is speaking to physicists about their research. A while ago I had the pleasure of talking to five physicists who are passionate about quantum computing. Four are academics: John Martinis of the University of California, Santa Barbara; Raymond Laflamme of the University of Waterloo in Canada; John Preskill of the California Institute of Technology; and Charles Marcus of the Niels Bohr Institute in Denmark. The fifth physicist is Geordie Rose, who is the co-founder of a company that says it has built a quantum computer.
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String theorist bags $3m Fundamental Physics Prize
By Hamish Johnston
Alexander Polyakov has something to smile about. (Courtesy: Technion University)
The string theorist Alexander Polyakov has won the 2013 Fundamental Physics Prize. The $3m prize is awarded by Milner Foundation, which is funded by the Russian entrepreneur Yuri Milner and was inaugurated last year.
Particle physics comes alive on a tablet
Home page of The Particles app. (Courtesy: Science Photo Library)
By Hamish Johnston
The physicist and best-selling author Frank Close has joined forces with Michael Marten – founder of the Science Photo Library (SPL) – and CERN Courier editor Christine Sutton to create a new app about particle physics. Called The Particles, the app is billed as an introduction to the Standard Model and is aimed at a wide audience that includes professional physicists, students and even amateur enthusiasts.
