Recreating the beginning of the universe at the LHC

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Recreating the beginning of the universe at the
LHC
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What Caused It?

• A singularity formed by a previous collapsed
  Universe?
• Multiple Universes?
• We just dont know YET

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What Happened? AND How?

• 96 of our universe seems to be missing.
• We dont know what its made from?
• Dark Matter? It seems to exist but scientists
  have no idea what it actually is.

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• Scientists Believe They Can Look Back To

0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 sec
onds after the moment of creation

• You would have needed a microscope to see it!

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THE STANDARD MODEL

• What is this?

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What is it?

• A theory of how the universe works.
• A description of how the fundamental particles
  that make up all matter interact with each other.
• 12 fundamental particles
• 4 fundamental forces

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Fundamental Forces
Force Range Strength Acts between
STRONG FORCE 10-15 m Strongest Quarks
ELECTROMAGNETIC No limit Stronger than WF Charged objects
WEAK FORCE 10-18 m Stronger than G Fundamental Particles
GRAVITY No limit Weakest All objects
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Classification

• According to the SM, matter can be divided into 3
  blocks
• FERMIONS
• BOSONS
• HADRONS

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Fermions

• Subatomic particles that make known matter and
  antimatter.

• Consists of QUARKS and LEPTONS.

• Found in the nuclei of atoms
• Mainly make up protons and neutrons

• Not found in nuclei
• e.g. electrons

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Bosons

• Bosons are particles that carry forces.

• There are 4 known bosons
• GLUON strong force
• W Z weak force
• PHOTON electromagnetic force, and operates over
  an infinite distance.

• THEORETICALGRAVITON gravity, and operates over
  an infinite distance.

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Hadrons

• Hadrons are composite particles made up of
  quarks, e.g. protons and neutrons.
• These can be found in the nucleus of an atom.

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The LHC

• Large Hadron collider

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What's All The Fuss About???

• The LHC
• Was built to help scientists answer key
  questions
• May reveal some unexpected results

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What Are these Unresolved Questions?

• 1) What is mass?
• What is the origin of mass?
• Why do tiny particles weigh the amount they do?
• Why do some particles have no mass at all?
• The most likely explanation could be the Higgs
  boson
• First hypothesized in 1964,
• It has yet to be observed.

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An Invisible Problem...

• 2) What is 96 of the universe made of?
• Matter forms 4 of the Universe.
• The rest, Dark matter and dark energy?
• Investigating this 96 is one of the biggest
  challenges today in the fields of particle
  physics and cosmology.

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Nature's Favoritism...

• 3) Why is there no more antimatter?
• Everything we see in the Universe is made of
  matter.
• Antimatter has opposite electric charge, but
  identical in every other way.
• At the birth of the Universe, more matter than
  antimatter was produced in the Big Bang.
• MATTER ANITMATTER ? ENERGY
• Why does Nature appear to have this bias for
  matter over antimatter?

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Secrets of the Big Bang

• 4) What was matter like within the first second
  of the Universes life?
• Matter is believed to have originated from
  fundamental particles.
• Today, the composition of matter comes down to
  gluons.
• During the first microseconds after the Big Bang
  the Universe would have contained quarkgluon
  plasma.

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Large Hadron Collider

• The worlds largest and most powerful particle
  accelerator.
• 38,000 tonnes
• 27 km ring of superconducting magnets
• Number of accelerating structures to boost the
  energy of the particles along the way
• 9300 magnets
• Trillions of protons racing around the LHC ring
  at over 11000 times a second.
• Traveling at 99.99 of the speed of light.
• 600 million collisions every second

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What Goes On Inside???

• Inside the accelerator,
• Two beams close to the speed of light
• Very high energies
• Beams travel in opposite directions
• Guided by a strong magnetic field.
• Chilling the magnets to about -271C
• A temperature colder than outer space!
• Temperatures up to 1000 times hotter than the
  centre of the Sun!

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The accelerator complex
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When will it Launch?

• First need to cool the machine down to almost
  absolute zero
• If there is a problem with the machine can cause
  a delay of up to 3 months.
• LHC is on course for a start-up as early as this
  summer.

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World Ending?

• Concerns about the safety of the high energy
  particle collisions.

• Mini black holes
• Mini Big Bangs

Overall no reasons for concern!
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The Higgs Mechanism

• The key to Mass

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What Is Higgs?

• A few years ago scientists hit a problem, they
  could not explain how mass exists!
• They came up with the Higgs mechanism
• The Higgs mechanism is the unproven quantum
  phenomenon that gives massless particles mass.

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The Higgs Field a simple explanation
In this explanation the famous person is a
particle and the people are the Higgs field.
Imagine a Hollywood party. In the beginning the
people are evenly distributed in the room.
When someone famous walks into the room the
people are attracted to them.
As the famous person moves through the room they
gain momentum, this is an indication of mass.
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The Higgs Particle A Simple Explanation
In this explanation the people in the room are
Higgs Bosons
Imagine the same Hollywood party. In the
beginning everyone is spread evenly in the room.
Then someone starts a rumour at the door and a
few people hear it and group together.
As the rumour moves through the room it gains
momentum and therefore it has gained mass.
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Higgs at the LHC

• If the Higgs exists, the LHC can transfer more
  than enough energy to detect it.

Even if the Higgs is proven incorrect, the LHC
will find something. Whatever the LHC finds will
be revolutionary
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