Chapter 155 New Proton Radius Data

Xu Chuan is not aware of his mentor's predicament yet, and he has no time to help others.

Because his own proton collision experiment is about to begin.

Ten days of preparation time is not long. Although CERN does not require him to personally control the proton accelerator to conduct experiments, he needs to analyze the data obtained after the experiment is completed.

The data generated by each operation of the proton accelerator is quite large.

Therefore, Xu Chuan needs a team to assist him in completing this task.

For this reason, he has been looking for people to help these days.

Originally, Senior Brother Qi Xishao Qi was a very good choice, but unfortunately, he had already joined Chen Zhengping's team.

It seems that work has already started.

After thinking about it, Xu Chuan called Senior Brother Lin Fenglin who was far away in Princeton.

He didn't know many people. One of them was Senior Brother Lin Feng, who was also a student of Witten and Chen Zhengping.

There is no way, who told him not to follow the development process of a normal person.

When others join CERN for the first time, they usually join as interns. If they have a job, they join the team as a member of the entire team.

After practicing this way for a while, you can get to know a lot of people.

And he directly presided over a project, even though it was only a small project for CERN.

But no matter how small the project is, experiments in the high-energy physics area still require manpower.

His mentor Witten is not very responsible. It may be that this project is nothing in Witten's eyes, or he wants to train him.

So I just applied for and arranged the collision experiment for him and then let it go.

The rest of the data analysis, press conferences and other tasks were all left to him.

Just tell him to tell him after the experiment is completed.

Therefore, Xu Chuan had to complete the experiment independently from beginning to end.

After inviting Senior Brother Lin Feng over, Xu Chuan frowned and thought about who else he could invite to help him complete this project.

But after thinking for a long time, he couldn't find any suitable candidate.

After his rebirth until now, he didn't know many people, it could even be said to be very few.

There was no way, the time was too short, and he didn't have enough journey to get to know more students of the same age as him.

Although there were many students at Nanjing University, and he knew many from both the mathematics and physics departments, it was a pity that none of these students had enough ability to participate in this kind of experiment.

Needless to say, Princeton. In the past two months since he joined Princeton, he has basically been perfecting the calculation method for the mystery of the proton radius, and he has not had time to make any new friends.

Unable to find enough candidates, Xu Chuan turned his attention to the CERN organization.

CERN lacks everything except people.

This is the world's largest high-energy physics research institution. During the normal operation of the LHC, at least more than 5,000 people work here every day.

Excluding the more than average number of engineers and handymen among these 5,000 people, there are still more than 2,000 physicists.

Physicists who can work at CERN, even if they are just interns, have knowledge of a doctoral degree or above.

At least, there is no need to worry about their lack of ability.

After consulting his mentor Witten, Xu Chuan posted a recruitment announcement to the entire CERN.

The mystery of the proton radius is a popular research direction in today's particle physics community. After the announcement was posted, in less than a day, his mailbox received applications from all over the world.

Of course, those who apply to participate in this project are basically CERN interns, both short-term and long-term.

Some may be to enrich their scientific research experience and learn new knowledge, while others may be for their graduation thesis.

Compared with formal researchers who basically have their own tasks, these interns have a much higher degree of freedom.

Especially those long-term interns, except for the experimental tasks of their own schools or organizations, they spend a lot of time in a state of idleness. They are trying to find their own opportunities in CERN.

Just like Xu Chuan's experiment, many times, teams from all over the world need some "temporary workers" to help them complete some data analysis or other basic work.

These are great exercise opportunities for interns.

Although these applicants are mixed, Xu Chuan has been able to solve the problem of team personnel needs.

All that's left is to make your selection.

After all, it's not suitable for everyone.

After a day of screening, Xu Chuan finally selected three people from the mailbox.

They are interns Athol Murphy from MIT, Jonah Creel from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and Nunnally Kessler from the University of Göttingen.

Among the many applications in the mailbox, these three have the best and outstanding resumes, and the top one is none other than Nunnally Kessler from the University of Göttingen.

This is a girl, majoring in particle physics. She has been an intern at CERN for a year and participated in the analysis and discovery of pentaquark particles in 2015.

If nothing unexpected happens, she will become a formal researcher at CERN next year.

Together with himself and Senior Brother Lin Feng who came from Princeton, five people from different countries formed a small temporary team.

Fortunately, everyone can speak English, so there is no problem in communication.

After gathering the group together for a meal, the intense and orderly work is about to begin.

July 25th, the day, soon arrived.

CERN staff have prepared the acceleration experiment, and they will use the SPS accelerator to complete this experiment.

In this experiment, CERN staff will, in accordance with Xu Chuan's requirements, fire a beam of electrons at hydrogen molecules through the accelerator and measure some electron deflection processes.

This is somewhat different from the process of measuring the radius of protons in other laboratories before.

Previous scattering experiments used high-energy electron beams, which have limited sensitivity to the proton radius and can only be extrapolated to low-energy electrons to determine the radius, but this time the lower energy will be used to avoid this problem.

And in order to further improve the accuracy, Xu Chuan asked CERN to inject hydrogen molecules directly into the vacuum tube carrying the electron beam, instead of placing the electron beam in a metal container as in many previous experiments.

This means that during the experiment, there will be no electrons that will hit the metal and interfere with the measurement, greatly improving the accuracy of the measurement.

It is also fortunate that it is at CERN, where there are various advanced equipment to complete this task as required.

If it were in other places, it would be a big hassle to directly inject hydrogen molecules into the vacuum tube carrying the electron beam.

Such an experiment would be very troublesome in other places, but in CERN, it is just a trivial collision experiment.

Even if Xu Chuan made some requirements, the engineers of CERN successfully completed the collision process according to the requirements.

As for the collected data, it will be processed by CERN's supercomputer first, and then it will be transferred to CERN's database.

Then Xu Chuan will apply for use. This is the overall workflow, which is somewhat similar to the use of public telescopes in the astronomical community.

On the morning of the 27th, Xu Chuan successfully got the data of this proton collision experiment from the staff of CERN.

Back to the temporary office where the application was made, the four members of the team were already waiting here.

"Everyone, the experimental data is down, and we have something to do."

Xu Chuan clapped his hands and attracted the attention of several friends.

"Great, let's start early and give the proton an accurate radius early!"

In the office, Athol Murphy, an intern at MIT with long brown hair, grinned.

Xu Chuan smiled and said, "Then the drawing of the transition map between electron energy levels will be handed over to you."

Hearing this, the smile on Athol Murphy's face disappeared immediately, and he wailed, "Oh, no, my dear Xu, you can't bully me like this, you know I'm not good at this."

"Compared with the drawing of the transition map between electron energy levels, I am better at analyzing the original data. Leave that to me, I will satisfy you."

Xu Chuan ignored Athol Murphy and began to arrange the work.

In fact, he was just joking. He couldn't hand over the drawing of the transition map between electron energy levels to others. This is the core of the relationship verification, and it can only be done by him.

"OK, everyone's work has been arranged. Let's start working. I believe that these tasks are not difficult for you."

After arranging the mathematical analysis work, the office suddenly became busy.

The calculation of the charge radius data of the proton is not a difficult task for the particle physics community. The predecessors have made countless efforts in this work.

Their current work is more like standing on the shoulders of giants and looking forward to the future.

The days passed one by one. In the office of CERN, Xu Chuan led several recruited partners to work overtime to complete the sorting of experimental data.

In the blink of an eye, the time came to August 5th.

"Xu, look at this, this scattering physics image of gravitons and protons seems to be a little abnormal."

In the office, Nanali Kessler from the University of Göttingen called Xu Chuan.

Hearing the voice, Xu Chuan replied without raising his head: "Wait a moment, wait until I finish the data analysis on hand."

The work in his hands has reached a critical point and it is impossible to put it down.

After waiting for more than ten minutes, Xu Chuan manipulated the mouse to add a stroke to a half-completed transition map on the display screen, and then stood up after saving it.

"What's wrong, Nanali?"

Walking to Nanali Kessler, Xu Chuan asked.

"Look at this, when the electron beam contacts the hydrogen molecular cloud, it is excited to the 3S state, and then they decay to the 2P state within 0.16μs, releasing detectable r-α photons. This is somewhat different from the usual proton radius measurement experiment." Nanali Kessler pointed to a series of energy spectrum images on the display screen and said.

Hearing this, Xu Chuan looked over curiously.

Following the direction of Nanali Kessler's finger, he really saw the abnormal data.

"Interesting, from this data, the effect of the electron beam on the hydrogen molecular cloud seems to be smaller than in previous experiments, which means that the radius of the proton may be smaller than 0.84184 femtometers."

Staring at the image on the display screen, Xu Chuan's eyes flashed with a stream of light.

For him, the secrets contained in this image that is difficult for ordinary people to understand are like the emperor's new clothes, nakedly placed in front of him.

After thinking for a while, Xu Chuan said: "Nannali, complete the analysis of this data as soon as possible, maybe we will get a brand new, smaller proton radius."

On the side, after hearing Xu Chuan's words, Nanali Kessler was stunned for a moment and said in surprise: "Smaller proton radius? Is this possible?"

Xu Chuan smiled and said: "Nothing is impossible. Before the proton radius calculation is completed through the first principles, it is normal to announce that the proton radius is below 0.8 femtometers."

"After all, we know too little about particles at the microscopic level, don't we?"

Hearing this, Nanali Kessler's breathing suddenly became rapid.

If they find a smaller proton radius data in this experiment, it means that they can leave a name in the history of particle physics.

Even if this data may not be the final accurate data.

In any case, in the current physics world, there is no accurate and definite value for the charge radius of the proton.

They might get a smaller proton radius data, which seemed to give the five-member team a shot of chicken blood.

They had been working overtime before, and now they put all their time except for eating and sleeping into data analysis.

With the support of this fiery state, finally, on August 11, Xu Chuan completed the final transition map between electron energy levels, and calculated the proton radius measured in this experiment.

[The proton body radius is Rp. The shape factor of the energy-momentum tensor is detected by scattering gravitons and protons, and some new formulas and their physical meanings of the properties of electrons and protons are introduced. The energy-charge ratio formula: mC/q=1/2εEds∫.=1/24πrεEr/4πrεE]

[It can be obtained that the circular motion associated with the de Broglie wave, that is, the detailed data of the second-level spin motion is: 0.831×10-15m±0.0016fm. ]

At the desk, Xu Chuan completed the final calculation and obtained a brand new proton radius data.

0.831×10-15m±0.0016fm.

The lowest proton charge radius in history.

It is much lower than the 0.879±0.011 fm femtometer determined by the International Committee on Scientific and Technical Data in the physics community, and also lower than the 0.84184±0.00067 fm measured by the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics.

"What is the data?"

"Have you calculated the radius of the proton?"

At the desk, after Xu Chuan finished the calculation, several other friends came over and asked nervously.

Xu Chuan picked up the calculation manuscript from the table and handed it over, and several friends behind him grabbed it.

"0.831 femtometer!"

"A brand new radius, we discovered a new history!"

"Incredible, the radius of the proton can be reduced further. If we didn't get this data ourselves, I would definitely sneer at it."

Seeing the answer on the manuscript, the office cheered immediately.

For these CERN interns, nothing is more exciting than this. This is a great discovery.

Whether or not this data can be proven correct in the future, there is no doubt that now they will be central figures in the particle physics world.