Saturday, April 7, 2012

LHC is back with big energy boost, BCC

Two teams at the LHC have seen hints of what may well prove to be the Higgs

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is operating again after its winter break.

Early on Thursday, opposing stable beams of protons were smashed into each other at four observation positions.
The total collision energy in these bunches of sub-atomic particles was eight trillion electron volts - a world record.
Scientists expect the big boost in capability to significantly increase the collider's chances of discovering "new physics".
The great expectation is that they will definitively confirm or deny the existence of the Higgs boson, the elusive particle that would help explain why matter has mass.
"The experience of two good years of running at 3.5 TeV per beam gave us the confidence to increase the energy for this year without any significant risk to the machine," explained Steve Myers, the director for accelerators and technology at Cern (European Organization for Nuclear Research).

What is an electronvolt?

Charged particles tend to speed up in an electric field, defined as an electric potential - or voltage - spread over a distance
One electron volt (eV) is the energy gained by a single electron as it accelerates through a potential of one volt
It is a convenient unit of measure for particle accelerators, which speed particles up through much higher electric potentials
The first accelerators only created bunches of particles with an energy of about a million eV
The LHC can reach beam energies a million times higher: up to several teraelectronvolts (TeV)
This is still only the energy in the motion of a flying mosquito
But LHC beams include trillions of these particles, each travelling at more than 99.999999% of the speed of light

"Now it's over to the experiments to make the best of the increased discovery potential we're delivering them!"

Since first switching on in 2008, operators at the LHC have cautiously increased the energy contained in each of the bunches of protons sent around the 27km collider, which lies beneath the Franco-Swiss border.
It is planned that the collider will collect data until November, after which it will be upgraded during a shutdown period that will last 20 months.
That should result in an operating proton beam energy of 14 trillion electronvolts, or teraelectronvolts - another great leap in capability.
The LHC collaboration hopes to reach that milestone in 2014, re-starting the hunt for novel physics in early 2015.
In the 2012 run of experiments, the Higgs will be a key focus.
Teams working on the two major detectors at the facility announced at the end of last year that they had seen hints of the particle, but stopped short of claiming they had seen it with certainty.
Anticipation was then further heightened a month ago by news that the recently closed Tevatron collider, based at the US national laboratory Fermilab, had also seen a "bump" in its archived data around the same mass region as that observed by the LHC detectors. That is, a particle with a mass of about 125 gigaelectronvolts (GeV; this is about 130 times as heavy as the protons found in atomic nuclei).
The new data collection phase will settle the issue, researchers believe.
Running the LHC at higher energies makes it more likely that Higgs particles, if they exist, will show themselves in the debris of the proton collisions.
"The increase in energy is all about maximising the discovery potential of the LHC," said Cern Research Director Sergio Bertolucci. "And in that respect, 2012 looks set to be a vintage year for particle physics."

Google unveils Project Glass augmented reality eyewear, BBC.

The eyewear appears to have a streamlined design despite all the functionality it is suggested to include

Google has revealed details of its research into augmented reality glasses.

It posted a brief introduction to Project Glass, photos and a concept video at its Google+ social network.
The images show a minimalist design with a microphone and partly-transparent video screen that places information over the view from the users' right eye.
The product's developers said they wanted feedback on the idea.
They did not give any indication about when the device might go on sale or what it would cost.
"A group of us... started Project Glass to build this kind of technology, one that helps you explore and share your world, putting you back in the moment," said a statement from Google X - the firm's experimental lab.
"We're sharing this information now because we want to start a conversation and learn from your valuable input."
Guided walks The video suggests icons offering 14 different services will be offered to the user when the glasses are first put on, including information about the weather, their location and diary appointments.
It appears that several of these services are either triggered by an action taken by the user or the situation they are in.
The film shows one user being reminded he has a date that evening when he looks up at a blank wall, and then warns him that there is a 10% chance it will rain when he looks out of the window.

Google glasses warn the subway service is suspended

The video suggests that the device would involve a GPS chip to help deliver location specific alerts

An alert pops up when a friend sends a text asking if he wants to meet up later in the day. When the user dictates a reply a microphone symbol is superimposed over much of his view.
Other functions include Google Maps showing a route to the wearer's destination with small arrows keeping him on track, the ability to take a photo of what he is looking at with an option to share it with friends, and a video conference service.
The glasses are also shown to allow music and other audio to be heard, although they do not appear to include earphones.
Shrink to fit There had been lots of speculation about the project with some reports describing it as an "open secret", but this is the first time Google has confirmed details of what it was working on.
The New York Times had previously suggested that the first set of glasses would go on sale before the end of the year for somewhere between $250-$600 (£157-£378) - but experts say that the technology shown in the video may still be some way off being ready for market.
Chris Green, principal technology analyst at Davies Murphy Group Europe, told the BBC that other tech firms such as Brother had attempted to pioneer the concept - but became unstuck because their versions had required users to carry separate processing and battery equipment that plugged into their glasses.
"There are huge opportunities for tailored advertising with augmented reality systems - especially if they have in-built GPS location tracking," he said.
"The monetisation opportunities would be enormous - but there are still big issues involved with shrinking the technology and making the computer that receives and processes the data truly portable."

Google suggests the glasses could help users find where products are located in shops

Rival eyewear Google may have competition if it works out how to shrink the electronics involved.
In 2008, Apple patented a laser-based "head mounted display system" that it suggested could stream video from its iPod among other features.
More recently, Patent Bolt revealed that Sony and Microsoft have patented ideas to create miniature displays to go over users' eyes.
They were described as being suitable for "gaming and beyond".
Google has previously revealed details of futuristic concepts years before they are ready for market.
The firm announced in 2010 that it had tested a self-driving car on the streets of California - but has not said when it might start selling such vehicles.