Inner space, outer space: quantum space

Craig Hogan, head of the Center for Particle Astrophysics, wrote this week’s column.

“Inner space, outer space” is Fermilab’s term for the observation that everything in the universe is connected to everything else. Experiments have found that even the biggest and smallest things in the universe depend on each other in surprising, profound and sometimes subtle ways.

Fermilab’s Tevatron, the best operating microscope in the world, allows us to study inner space. The Dark Energy Survey, for which Fermilab is building a giant camera, will map quantum effects on the largest cosmic scales of outer space. Now interferometers, a new kind of instrument to detect gravitational waves, promise to scrutinize inner space and outer space at the same time in the same apparatus. They’ll possibly allow a glimpse of a new kind of big-small interconnectedness: quantum space.

Interferometers such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory in the U.S. and the GEO600 project in Germany use laser cavities to create a coherent quantum state that spans several kilometers. They look with extraordinary precision for tiny distortions of space--even smaller than the distances accessible by the Tevatron. Their precision is like measuring the position of Mars to within the diameter of an atom.

Interferometers were built to study gravitational radiation. But recently we realized they could also discover new physics they were not designed to detect--including phenomena at the Planck scale, the smallest fundamental interval of space and time.

Black hole physics and string theory suggest that quantum spacetime might be holographic: Our familiar three dimensions of space might be the result of a quantum theory that only has two large spatial dimensions. The third dimension emerges as time evolves: picture a two-dimensional sheet sweeping through space at the speed of light.

Such a holographic universe would have a kind of quantum blurriness in its geometry that would appear in interferometers as "holographic noise.” There are hints that this excess noise might already appear in data recorded by interferometers. We may soon have the first direct evidence for the quantum geometry of our universe and obtain a precise determination of the smallest fundamental interval of time. If so, this measurement could revolutionize our understanding of the universe, similar to the measurement of “noise” that led to the discovery of the cosmic microwave background in 1965.

Excerpted: Fermilab Today

LHC Grid Fest + Webcast

When the Large Hadron Collider comes into operation, it will begin to produce an expected 15 million gigabytes of data every year, enough information to create a 21-kilometre-high stack of CDs annually.  

On 3rd October, the Worldwide Large Hadron Collider Computing Grid consortium announce the readiness of the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid (WLCG), an e-infrastructure conceived and designed to support this data challenge, and with it the research of more than 9000 physicists around the globe.

"The Worldwide LHC Computing Grid is generating the technology for tomorrow's science needs. We are witnessing a unique collaboration on an international scale, with vast potential for accelerating discoveries in physics and other fields of science." Ian Bird, WLCG project leader.

Incident in the LHC - Sector 34

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Source: CERN
Content: Press Release
Date Issued: 20 September 2008
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Incident in LHC sector 34

Geneva, 20 September 2008. During commissioning (without beam) of the final LHC sector (sector 34) at high current for operation at 5 TeV, an incident occurred at mid-day on Friday 19 September resulting in a large helium leak into the tunnel. Preliminary investigations indicate that the most likely cause of the problem was a faulty electrical connection between two magnets, which probably melted at high current leading to mechanical failure. CERN[1]’s strict safety regulations ensured that at no time was there any risk to people.

A full investigation is underway, but it is already clear that the sector will have to be warmed up for repairs to take place. This implies a minimum of two months down time for LHC operation. For the same fault, not uncommon in a normally conducting machine, the repair time would be a matter of days.

Further details will be made available as soon as they are known.

Contact information:
James.Gillies@cern.ch
+ 41 22 767 4101

1 CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.

CERN Opens Its Doors to the World - April 06, 2008

On 6 April 2008, CERN will open its doors to the public, offering a unique chance to visit its newest and largest particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), before it goes into operation later this year. This scientific instrument, the largest and most complex in the world, is installed in a 27km tunnel, 100 metres underground in the Swiss canton of Geneva and neighbouring France. CERN will open all access points around the ring for visits underground, to the tunnel and the experiment caverns. On the surface, a wide-ranging programme will be on offer, allowing people to learn about the physics for which this huge instrument is being installed, the technology underlying it, and applications in other fields.

In the LHC, particles such as protons or heavy ions will be accelerated to close to the speed of light in two tubes. At four intersection points the particles will collide at an energy never before reached in a particle accelerator to study new areas of physics that so far have not been accessible. Experiments at the LHC expect to be able to answer a number of fundamental questions, such as the origin of mass or the nature of the so-called “dark matter”. However, since the LHC will explore a new energy range, there will also be unexpected results, resulting in new questions and new physics.

On the Open Day, many visitors to CERN will be able to descend and see the LHC and its big experiments, ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb in place in their underground caverns.

A central theme apart from the LHC, its magnets and experiments, will be superconductivity, the principle on which the operation of the LHC is based. At the heart of the LHC magnets lie 7000 kilometres of superconducting cables, cooled to a temperature close to absolute zero,
which are able to conduct electricity without resistance. Spectacular experiments, exhibitions and films will introduce the public to this exciting phenomenon, visitors will be able to meet physicists to “ask an expert” and there will be the chance for an encounter with two Nobel laureates who will give lectures about their prize-winning discoveries.