UP News
 
   
   
   
   
Editor-in-Chief:
James Stankowicz
Assistant Editor:
Steven Hochman
Layout Director:
George CB Ling
Online Editor:
Steven Hochman
Staff Writers:
Victor Albert
Brady Nash
Eric Swanson
Faculty Advisor:
Dr. Amlan Biswas

 
   
Cowboys on the Energy Frontier Engage in Particle Shootout
by Steven Hochman



When it comes to particle physics, the fastest particle accelerator will reveal the future, and the past. That’s what Young-Kee Kim from the University of Chicago espoused in one of the UF Physics Colloquia. Accelerators are extremely important to particle physics. Currently many professors at UF are analyzing data from the 2 TeV proton-antiproton accelerator at FermiLab in Chicago. Accelerators have many useful aspects. High powered accelerators are used as microscopes and as “time travel” devices to simulate what it was like micro-seconds after the big bang. Right now physicists around the world are trying to complete the standard model and unite the four forces of nature. One of the looming mysteries physicists also hope to shed light on is the elusive dark matter, and its even more abundant counterpart, dark energy. The future looks bright for particle physics though, as the LHC at CERN goes operational. The massive 14 TeV proton-proton collider is expected to produce the elusive Higgs Boson particle. The observation of the Higgs could provide the missing links in the standard model that have been plaguing physicists for many years. Even with that assumed obtainable, most of the universe (of which dark matter and dark energy constitute 96%) remains uncharted. These physicists are truly the “Cowboys” of the universe.