Chapter 154 Tools to Open Hell
No words were spoken that night.
The next morning, Xu Chuan followed his mentor Chen Zhengping and several other physics professors from China to the headquarters of the European Organization for Nuclear Research.
Geneva is not far from the legendary "small town" and can be reached in a short drive.
Led by Qi Xishao, the group came to CERN and checked into a modern hotel.
Just after checking in, an old man with a full white beard appeared in the lobby.
Seeing this figure, Chen Zhengping was stunned for a moment and then quickly stepped forward to greet him.
"Professor Engler, I didn't expect to meet you here."
Hearing the voice, the old man stopped and looked at Chen Zhengping, then a mellow smile appeared on his face.
"Welcome, Academician Chen."
After greeting the old man, Chen Zhengping pulled Xu Chuan and Qi Xishao over and introduced: "This is Professor Francois Englert, winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics."
"Hello, Professor Englert, my name is Xu Chuan, from China."
Xu Chuan took the initiative to greet the old man in front of him and shook hands.
Francois Englert, a top expert in theoretical physics.
He and Peter Higgs won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2013 for their prediction of the Higgs boson.
Unfortunately, Professor Robert Braut, who proposed the Higgs mechanism and Higgs boson theory with him, has passed away and failed to receive this honor.
In fact, the old man in front of him is already 85 years old this year.
It can be seen that winning the Nobel Prize requires not only great contributions, but also a long life.
Engler stretched out his right hand and shook hands with Xu Chuan, smiling and saying, "This name sounds familiar, I seem to have heard it somewhere, let me think about it."
"Xu Chuan, Xu Chuan"
After muttering a few words, Francois Engler's eyes lit up, and he asked with a hint of surprise, "Was the paper on the calculation method of the mystery of the proton radius written by you at the beginning of this month?"
Xu Chuan said modestly, "It's just a trivial achievement. Compared with your achievements and glory, it's not worth mentioning at all."
Engel smiled and said, "This is not a trivial contribution. You have pushed the precise value of the proton radius forward a big step. Perhaps in the near future, we will have a more accurate value to use."
Xu Chuan smiled and said, "I hope so."
After chatting with Francois Engler and exchanging contact emails, the group went upstairs to put their luggage.
Then, Xu Chuan was pulled out by the enthusiastic Qi Xishao, who called it familiarity.
For Xu Chuan, the environment of CERN is very familiar to him. He stayed here for many years in his previous life, and made many research achievements with the help of the large particle collider under his feet.
Revisiting the old place, he was full of emotion.
But it must be said that this small town under his feet is a rare place that can be compared with the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.
Relying on the large particle collider buried 100 meters deep underground, more than one-third or even half of the world's theoretical physicists and high-energy physicists are gathered here.
You can find a restaurant in the town to eat, and the person sitting opposite you may be a big shot in the theoretical physics world, or an honorary professor of a well-known university.
It is no exaggeration to say that if this place is "bombed" by terrorists, then human physics will directly regress by at least 20 years.
By the way, it is worth mentioning that at the entrance of CERN, there is a sculpture of Shiva in Hinduism, dancing the cosmic dance of creation and destruction.
What is more worth mentioning is that every time the LHC is turned on or the energy is enhanced, a disaster or a strange event happens in the nearby area or at the same time.
For example, on September 10, 2008, when the LHC was first turned on, four major earthquakes occurred within 24 hours.
Including Iran with a magnitude of 6.1, the Atlantic with a magnitude of 6.6, Indonesia with a magnitude of 6.6, and Hokkaido with a magnitude of 6.9, a total of four major earthquakes.
On January 12, 2010, when the LHC increased its power to 3.5 tev, a few hours later, a magnitude 7 earthquake occurred in Haiti, killing 300,000 people.
On December 21, 2012, when CERN turned on the LHC at its maximum energy, on the same day, a strange vortex appeared in the sky of Australia, just like the one in the Norwegian sky on December 9, 2009.
At that time, this strange vortex was considered by many people to be a time vortex that went straight to 2009, and that passing through it could directly return to 2009.
But unfortunately, the vortex did not exist for very long, so no one could successfully pass through it.
However, every time the LHC is in operation, there will be some strange phenomena or disasters, which makes many people think that this reflects its adverse effects on the earth.
Therefore, many people think that the LHC is a tool to open hell, and they keep calling for marches to protest in order to close it.
After visiting this holy place for physicists with Senior Brother Qi, Xu Chuan returned to the hotel and called his mentor Witten to ask about the mentor's location.
Originally, Witten should have returned to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, but because of the mystery of the proton radius, he stayed here.
What surprised Xu Chuan was that the hotel where Wei Teng stayed was actually the one where he was staying now, except that he lived on the third floor.
According to the house number provided by Wei Teng, Xu Chuan successfully found his mentor.
He knocked on the door and the old man inside welcomed him in.
"You came quite early. If we remember correctly, it seems that today is only the 15th? There are still about ten days before your experiment."
Seeing Xu Chuan appear here, Wei Teng asked with some surprise.
"I originally came here with my college mentor. He has an experimental collaboration here on the 18th of this month, and I came here as an intern in the project team."
"But mentor, you applied for the use of the proton accelerator for me, so I can't participate in the project over there."
Xu Chuan explained briefly, and Witten nodded: "So that's the case. It's good for you to participate in more projects, but that's for the future. The most important thing for you now is to focus on the mystery of the proton radius."
After a pause, Witten continued: "Since you have arrived early, you should first get familiar with the environment here and the work process and other things."
"These things will have a manual and instructions and other materials. I will send them to your email later. You will take a good look after receiving them."
"In addition, you should take time to go to the office to handle the entry in the next two days, join my scientific research project team, and become a researcher, so that you can officially participate in the subsequent acceleration experiment of the mystery of the proton radius."
Xu Chuan nodded and agreed.
This is the benefit of following a top physics professor.
If he joins the ATLAS research group in China, he can only become an intern.
But Witten directly applied for him the status of a formal researcher, skipping the intern step.
Although there is only one level difference between an intern and a formal researcher, according to the formal process, at least a doctoral student or above needs to work at CERN for at least one year.
Obviously, the old professor opened a back door for him this time, allowing him to take a shortcut and directly skip the intern.
With such an identity, Xu Chuan can come to CERN at any time in the future and join
Of course, he is only a formal experimental researcher, not a theoretical researcher.
There are less than 30 formal theoretical researchers at CERN, and each of them is a national treasure-level scholar from various countries, a real top boss.
It can be said that these 30 people have determined the fate of CERN and the fate of the physics world.
For example, Witten is both an experimental research professor at CERN and a theoretical researcher at CERN.
After greeting Witten, Xu Chuan returned to his room.
He did not read the manuals and instructions in the mailbox. After all, he was familiar with the working process of the LHC large particle collider and the working process of small and medium-sized accelerators. It would be a waste of time to read these things again.
In contrast, Xu Chuan was more curious about what new discoveries he could make by coming into contact with CREN more than three years earlier than before his rebirth.
After all, the collision experiments every year are different, and the collision data generated by them are also completely different.
Although these collision data are generally stored in the database of the European Organization for Nuclear Research after the first analysis, under normal circumstances, almost no one will be bored to look through the huge data in the database in order to find something from it.
Because these data have been analyzed once, it is undoubtedly a waste of time and inefficient to look them up again.
Xu Chuan has never looked through the huge data in the historical database. He first came into contact with CERN in his previous life in early 2019.
This means that he did not come into contact with the experimental data from 2016-2019 in his previous life.
So for him now, these data are first-hand, brand new, and worth exploring.
After completing the formalities and officially becoming an experimental researcher in the Witten project, Xu Chuan looked through CERN's work schedule for the second half of 2016.
For CERN, the world's largest particle physics laboratory, there are countless scientific research experiments every year.
However, the most important scientific research experiments are divided into four categories, corresponding to the four large detectors of the LHC.
They are the universal torus detectors ATLAS and CMS, the heavy ion experimental detector ALICE, and the half-front field detector LHCb.
ATLAS and CMS are mainly used to detect various universal signals, and the two independent experimental groups verify each other to ensure the credibility of the experimental results.
The Higgs particle, known as the "God particle", was discovered by these two detectors at the same time.
The third detector ALICE is only turned on in the experiment of colliding lead nuclei to study the interaction between heavy ions.
As for the last one, LHCb, it is mainly used to study the asymmetry in the collision process, the search for antimatter, the study of parity non-conservation and the strange properties of various flavor physics.
In recent years, with the passage of time, the importance of LHCb is increasing, because it is the basic main force for studying quarks.
Xu Chuan looked through CERN's work schedule for the second half of this year. The ATLAS and CMS experimental devices will still mainly observe the Higgs boson and measure the standard model to verify its correctness.
ALICE mainly conducts experimental measurements on strange baryons and antibaryons, and in the second half of the year, ALICE will collide lead ions to reconstruct the early form of the universe after the Big Bang under laboratory conditions. The data obtained will allow physicists to study the properties and state of quark-gluon plasma, a substance believed to exist only a short time after the Big Bang.
As for LHCb, it will continue to observe quarks to collect more hadrons or to discover new particles.
The four detectors have their own task arrangements. After thinking for a while, Xu Chuan drew a circle on the ALICE experiment.
He is very interested in this.
Reconstructing the early form of the universe after the Big Bang, this experiment can make people tremble with excitement just by listening to it.
CERN, Huaguo Research Area, Jinling University's office area, Chen Zhengping is leading several project team members to analyze the data in their hands.
"Xi Shao, how is your work going over there, and how long will it take?"
In the office, Chen Zhengping took a sip of warm water from the thermos cup and asked.
Hearing the inquiry, Qi Xishao shook his head and said, "The data this time is far more complicated than the analysis we have done before. I can't find a way to suppress the background events caused by secondary leptons and misreconstructed leptons, nor can I find direct evidence of the coupling between the top quark and the Higgs particle."
"It may be hidden in these data, but we can't find it."
Hearing this, Chen Zhengping couldn't help but frowned.
If this is the case, this experiment will be in trouble.
After the Higgs particle was discovered and publicly announced in 2012, the appearance of the Higgs particle filled the last piece of the standard model, but it could not explain dark matter and dark energy.
So people hope to find new physics beyond the standard model to explain these phenomena.
The standard model contains some experimentally measurable parameters. If the experimental measurement value is consistent with the standard model, it means that the standard model is verified. If it is inconsistent with the standard model, it means that new physics may be included.
In the standard model, the Higgs particle has a special property. It is the reason why other particles gain mass. Both fermions and bosons gain mass through the Higgs mechanism.
So studying the specific physical properties of the Higgs particle is still an important topic of the LHC experiment.
The main research objects of the two most important experimental devices of LHC, ATLAS and CMS, are the Higgs boson.
Since the discovery of the Higgs boson, the ATLAS collaboration has collected more than 5 million Higgs boson data, thus achieving higher-precision experimental measurements and stricter restrictions on the theory.
The Higgs boson was first discovered in the LHC experiment through the ZZ, γγ and WW decay processes, which perfectly demonstrated the coupling between the Higgs and the gauge bosons.
In 2015, the Yukawa coupling between the Higgs and the third-generation lepton (tau τ) was first observed.
And this year, the project team led by him applied for the Yukawa coupling between the Higgs and the third-generation heavy quarks (top quark t and bottom quark b).
This part is undoubtedly very important.
But important things are often not studied by one family. Like them, there are two other universities and institutions that have applied for this part of the scientific research experiment.
One is from the Georgia Institute of Technology in the United States, and the other is from the University of Australia in Australia.
Both opponents are quite strong and are ranked much higher than Nanjing University in the world university rankings.
Therefore, their research time is very tight. If they cannot produce results within a short period of time, the value of the collision data will probably be fully exploited by the other party.