Speed of light - a constant or not?

Scientists at the Gran Sasso laboratory, using neutrinos sent from CERN through the earth to Italy, have potentially discovered that the speed of light may, in fact, be broken.

See The Irish Times for more.

Anti-Helium nuclei created

Members of the STAR collaboration have created anti-He nuclei for the first time using the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).

See Nature.

Saturn's Aurora

The Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn has observed an effect similar to the aurorae on Earth due to a flow of electrons between the planet and its moon Enceladus. This effect was previously observed, again by Cassini, between Jupiter and its moon Io.

See BBC News.

Potential New Particle or Fifth Fundamental Force?

Fermilab scientists today announced an anomaly in their collision data at the Tevatron which could point to a previously unknown subatomic particle, or according to some a possible new extremely short distance fifth fundamental force. Either result, if verified would be one of the most important discoveries in Physics in recent decades.

See New York Times and the paper at http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.0699

Antimatter atoms trapped

Researchers at CERN have trapped atoms of anti-hydrogen in magnetic 'bottles' for extended periods of over 100 ms, potentially enabling their study in the laboratory.

See Nature.

The Large Hadron Collider: Shedding Light on the Dark Universe

If you missed it, you can now watch online "The Large Hadron Collider: Shedding Light on the Dark Universe", the talk by Prof. Rolf-Dieter Heuer. Recorded November 24th at the RDS by HEAnet.

The world may soon have a deeper understanding than ever before about the origins and workings of the Universe thanks to the remarkable Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Built in a tunnel one kilometre beneath Switzerland’s Jura mountains, this €4 billion physics experiment will smash atoms together at colossal speeds to create energies not seen since just after the Big Bang.

See streamed lecture.

Antimatter creation now feasible in the laboratory

Physicists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have developed a new technique to generate beams of antimatter particles. Using a gold sample the size of the head of a thumb tack, a laser is shot through it producing more than 100 billion positrons per pulse emitted in a cone-shaped plasma “jet.”

This ability to create a large number of positrons in a small laboratory opens the door to several fresh avenues of anti-matter research, including an understanding of the physics underlying various astrophysical phenomena such as black holes and gamma ray bursts.

In the experiment, the laser ionises and accelerates electrons, which are driven through the gold target. On their way, the electrons interact with the gold nuclei, which serve as a catalyst to create positrons. The electrons give off packets of pure energy, which decays into matter and anti-matter, following the predictions by Einstein’s mass-energy equation. By concentrating the energy in space and time, the laser produces positrons more rapidly and in greater density than ever before in the laboratory.

See Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory PR.

First beam in large hadron collider (LHC) at CERN

Geneva, 10 September 2008.
The first beam in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was successfully steered around the full 27 kilometres of the world’s most powerful particle accelerator at 10h28 CET this morning. This historic event marks a key moment in the transition from over two decades of preparation to a new era of scientific discovery.

See CERN LHC.