Superstring theory is elegant but speculative and throws up a number of possible experimental outcomes, some more likely than others.
One option would be to find evidence of another host of particles that can only exist if there are more dimensions…
String theory and extra dimensions
Loose ends
Will the string tie the Standard package? Hot on the heels of the Standard Model, some physicists are working to support an idea called string theory. This attempts to tie up the loose ends in the…
Evidence from the depths of the Universe has ruled out a number of models for what the mysterious dark matter might be, but one candidate that fits so far is the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) otherwise known as the “neutralino”, the…
This week the CMS collaboration will publish the results of its search for the Higgs boson that were presented at CERN in December 2011 [1].
Nine papers will be submitted for publication using the entire data sample of proton-proton collisions…
Dark secrets of the Universe
It’s perhaps natural that we don’t know much about how the Universe was created – after all, we were never there ourselves. But it’s surprising to realise that when it comes to the Universe today, we don’t…
Will SUSY be found?
If supersymmetry exists it will likely show itself through the presence of missing energy and through some particle signatures being produced more frequently than the normal “background” rate. A thorough understanding of the…
Supersymmetry: Uniting the forces
Towards a superforce
Our understanding of the workings of the Universe often progress when unexpected connections are found between what appeared at first to be separate entities. A major breakthrough occurred in…
The standard package
The theories and discoveries of thousands of physicists over the past century have resulted in a remarkable insight into the fundamental structure of matter: everything that has been directly observed in the Universe until now…
Accelerators and detectors
The particles that make up forces and matter are so small that if the nucleus of an atom were enlarged to the size of a tennis ball, a full stop (".") would be as big as the earth’s orbit of the sun. They are so…
Take a massive explosion to create plenty of stardust and a raging heat. Simmer for an eternity in a background of cosmic microwaves. Let the ingredients congeal and leave to cool and serve cold with cultures of tiny organisms 13.7 billion years…
CMS is organizing a Workshop entitled Perspectives on Physics and on CMS at Very High Luminosity, HL-LHC which will take place in the Ukrainian city of Alushta in the Crimea, 28-31 May, 2012. JINR (Dubna) will serve as a host. Alushta is a scenic…
“If you remember, Mark Twain once said, ‘There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.’ If you use statistics in an improper way, you could get pretty much any result,” says Greg Landsberg, CMS’s new physics coordinator. “The…