Latest news with #CompactMuonSolenoid
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
AI helps CERN physicists charm Higgs boson into revealing rare decay
Researchers at CERN have used artificial intelligence (AI) to explore one of the Higgs boson's most elusive behaviors, shedding light on its subtle interaction with charm quarks and bringing science closer to understanding how the so-called God particle gives matter its mass. Discovered in 2012 at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the Higgs boson, the fundamental force-carrying particle of the Higgs field, plays a crucial role in the Standard Model of particle physics by interacting with particles like quarks to bestow mass. While earlier experiments confirmed the Higgs boson's interactions with heavier third-generation quarks, both top and bottom, it remains a major challenge to study its connection with second-generation quarks like the charm quark, and the lighter first-generation up and down quarks that form the building blocks of atomic nuclei. Now, as part of the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment, one of two major general-purpose particle detectors at the LHC, the research team announced that they've set the most precise limits yet on the Higgs boson's decay into charm quarks, marking a major step toward understanding how it gives mass to matter. Producing a Higgs boson alongside a pair of top quarks, followed by its decay into quark pairs, is a rare event at the LHC and especially difficult to tell apart from background collisions that appear nearly identical. This is because quarks don't appear as distinct particles but instead form dense, collimated sprays of hadrons, called jets, that travel only a short distance before decaying. This makes it especially difficult for methods such as tagging to distinguish charm quark jets from those produced by other quarks. "This search required a paradigm shift in analysis techniques," Sebastian Wuchterl, PhD, a CERN research fellow explains. "Because charm quarks are harder to tag than bottom quarks, we relied on cutting-edge machine-learning techniques to separate the signal from backgrounds." To overcome the challenge, the CMS team turned to advanced AI, leveraging two machine-learning models tailored for the challenge. First, they used a type of algorithm called a graph neural network to enhance charm jet identification. These algorithms treat each jet as a network of particles, learning how to spot subtle structural patterns unique to charm quark decays. The team then tackled the second hurdle, distinguishing Higgs boson signals from background processes, with a transformer network, best known for powering AI language models like ChatGPT. This network was repurposed to classify entire collision events, distinguishing those likely to feature a Higgs boson decaying into charm quarks. The charm-tagging algorithm was trained on hundreds of millions of simulated jets, enabling it to identify charm jets with significantly greater accuracy. The analysis focused on data collected from 2016 to 2018, specifically targeting collision events in which the Higgs boson is produced together with a pair of top quarks. By combining this dataset with results from previous studies, CMS achieved a roughly 35 percent improvement in the sensitivity of Higgs–charm interaction measurements. "Our findings mark a major step," Jan van der Linden, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University, said in a press release. 'With more data from upcoming LHC runs and improved analysis techniques, we may gain direct insight into the Higgs boson's interaction with charm quarks at the LHC - a task that was thought impossible a few years ago." The researchers hope that as the LHC collects more data, improved charm tagging and event classification could enable CMS and its companion experiment ATLAS to confirm the Higgs boson's decay into charm quarks. This would mark a massive step toward fully understanding how the Higgs gives mass to all quarks and would provide a crucial test of the 50-year-old Standard Model.
The Hindu
30-04-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
Breakthrough Prize 2025 awarded to CMS collaboration featuring IIT Hyderabad physicists
Researchers from IIT Hyderabad are part of the team that received the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics for Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS). The researchers are part of an experimental collaboration working on the CMS experiment. The 2025 Breakthrough Prize has been awarded to the co-authors of publications from the large experimental collaborations based at the Large Hadron Collider at European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), which has the four major experiments of CMS, ATLAS, ALICE and LHCb. According to IIT-H, researchers, including faculty members and students, from the Department of Physics at IIT Hyderabad have been actively working on the CMS experiment, on research areas such as studies of the Higgs boson, search for new fundamental particles and forces, and particle reconstruction at detectors among others. The Breakthrough Prize 2025 lists Assistant Professor at IIT-H Saranya Ghosh, a member of the CMS collaboration, as one of the laureates, according to IITH. Mr. Ghosh, elated at the achievement, said the prize recognises years of dedicated effort and stressed that scientific progress that can be achieved through collaborative efforts. He hoped that young researchers and students will be further motivated to pursue fundamental research. IITH Director B.S. Murty, recognising the collective efforts and dedication of thousands of scientists, said it was an honour to be part of a global collaboration that is expanding the frontiers of understanding the universe. He expressed satisfaction that the role of India and IITH in high-energy physics research was growing.
Muscat Daily
23-03-2025
- Science
- Muscat Daily
Sohar University is associate member of CERN
Sohar University is the First Private Higher Education Institution in the Sultanate to be an associate member of one of the entities of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) Suhar – In a move that reflects its commitment to research excellence and international collaboration, Sohar University announces that it has officially become an associate member to one of the entities of the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN). This CERN entity is known as the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) research experiment which includes the world's largest and highest-energy particle accelerator that is related to advanced specialised technology. Sohar University is the first private higher education institution in the Sultanate to join this prestigious research organisation. The R&D equipment and facilities available to CERN-CMS are the best advanced research equipment in the world, comprising very large facilities and equipment with a diameter of 14 metres and a length of 26.7 kilometres, which are installed in a tunnel located 100 metres below the surface of the ground along the border between France and Switzerland and the total weight of the system is 14,000 metric tonnes. Certainly, research facilities similar in their sophistication and size to this system cannot be easily developed without allocating very large investment amounts that may reach the equivalent of the budgets of several countries in the world. Sohar University's associate-membership will enable the university researchers to have access and joint use of such an important research facility and thus enhance the position of the university and the Sultanate among higher education institutions and research centres in the world. Dr. Hamdan bin Sulaiman al Fazari, the Vice-Chancellor of Sohar University, stressed that this partnership comes within the strategy of Sohar University to promote scientific research and innovation, and provide opportunities for its students and researchers to benefit from the latest technologies and advanced laboratories at CERN-CMS, which contributes to the development of scientific knowledge and raising the level of national competencies in the technical and research fields. It also strengthens the university position as a leading university in scientific research, and opens the doors to innovation and progress in the technological and scientific fields, which contributes to achieving Oman Vision 2040, and aims to upgrade the research, development and innovation ecosystem in the Sultanate. Professor Ghassan bin Adnan al Kindi, the Sohar University Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Innovation, stated that the number of higher education institutions and research centres from all over the world that have associate membership, cooperation, and partnership activities with CERN-CMS is currently 247 universities and research centres from 58 countries, including the most prestigious universities and research institutes in the world. Prof. Ghassan stressed that the scientific and research collaboration within CERN-CMS is described as one of the largest international scientific collaboration projects in history. The great positive with an overwhelming majority vote of the CERN-CMS Collaboration Board has concluded the approval of Sohar University's case to become one of their associate members. This outcome has been successfully achieved in light of the Sohar University proposed collaboration programme. The suggested collaboration programme has achieved great impact in showing the true bright image of Sohar University in front of the approximately 250 members, from prestigious universities and international research centres, of the Board. The ambitious collaboration plan developed by Sohar University with CERN-CMS allows for the acquisition and transfer of knowledge and building the research and technological capabilities of the university's cadres and allows faculty, researchers, and students to participate in various research in engineering and technological techniques in the relevant fields and to collaborate with elite scientists and researchers around the world. This, in turn, enables the university to contribute to the world's leading scientific experiments that aim to contribute to the achievement of the sustainable development goals and the goals of Oman Vision 2040.
Yahoo
22-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Einstein wins again! Quarks obey relativity laws, Large Hadron Collider finds
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Is there a time of day or night at which nature's heaviest elementary particle stops obeying Einstein's rules? The answer to that question, as bizarre as it seems, could tell scientists something very important about the laws of physics governing the cosmos. In a first-of-its-kind experiment conducted at the world's most powerful particle accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), scientists have attempted to discover if the universe's heaviest elementary particle — a particle not composed of other smaller particles — always obeys Einstein's 1905 theory of special relativity. More specifically, the team operating the LHC's Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) detector wanted to know if one of the rules upon which special relativity is built, called "Lorentz symmetry," always holds for top quarks. Lorentz symmetry states that the laws of physics should be the same for all observers who aren't accelerating. That means that the results of an experiment should be independent of the orientation of the experiment, or the speed at which it runs. However, some theories suggest that, at extremely high energies, special relativity fails as a result of Lorentz violation or Lorentz symmetry breaking. The laws of physics could therefore differ for observers in different frames of reference. That would mean that experimental observations would depend on the orientation of the experiment in space-time (the four-dimensional unification of space and time). That would result in a shakeup in many of our best theories of the cosmos, including the standard model of particle physics, which is founded on special relativity."Remnants of such Lorentz symmetry breaking could be observable at lower energies, such as at the energies of the LHC, but despite previous efforts, they have not been found at the LHC or other colliders," the CMS collaboration wrote in a statement. The CMS team set about searching for such remnants of Lorentz symmetry breaking using pairs of nature's heaviest elementary particle, the top quark. Quarks are the particles in the standard model of particle physics that bind together and comprise particles like protons and neutrons. There are six "flavors" of quark with increasing masses: up, down (found in protons and neutrons), charm, strange, top, and bottom. The heaviest of these is the top quark, possessing around the same mass as a gold atom (about 173 giga-electronvolts). The CMS researchers reasoned that, if the collisions between protons accelerated to near-light-speeds in the LHC depend on orientation, then the rate at which top-quark pairs produced by such events should vary with time. That is because, as Earth rotates, the direction of the proton beams generated for particle collisions in the powerful particle accelerator changes. Thus, the direction of the top quarks created by such collisions should change, too. Wildly, that means that the number of quarks created should depend on what time of day the collisions occur! Thus, if there is a preferred direction in space-time and signs of Lorentz symmetry breaking, there should be a deviation from a constant rate of top quark pair production in the LHC dependent on the time of day the experiment is conducted! Using data from Run 2 of the LHC, which was conducted between 2015 and 2018, the CMS collaboration found no such deviation. That means that they found no sign of Lorentz symmetry breaking, and thus no evidence of top quarks defying Einstein no matter what way proton beams are orientated (or what time of day collisions occurred). So, Einstein's theory of relativity is safe around the clock. Well, for now, at least. Related Stories: —Weird particle physics stories that blew our minds in 2023 —A tiny, wobbling muon just shook particle physics to its core —A strange new Higgs particle may have stolen the antimatter from our universe The upgraded LHC's third and more powerful operating run began in 2022 and is set to conclude next year. The team will look for signs of Lorentz symmetry breaking in higher-energy proton-proton collisions. "The results pave the way for future searches for Lorentz symmetry breaking based on top-quark data from the third run of the LHC," the CMS collaboration wrote. "They also open the door to scrutiny of processes involving other heavy particles that can only be investigated at the LHC, such as the Higgs boson and the W and Z bosons." The team's research was published at the end of 2024 in the journal Physics Letters B.
