2 days ago
- Science
- Winnipeg Free Press
U of W physics prof makes chilling Canadian scientific breakthrough
A University of Winnipeg professor and his team broke a Canadian record while taking what might just be a big step that gets scientists closer to understanding the universe's makeup.
Jeff Martin's research team recently broke the Canadian record — previously held by his same crew — for ultracold neutron production.
The process takes extremely hot and difficult-to-control neutrons — extremely small subatomic particles — out of an atom's nucleus and cools them so they can be studied more precisely.
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Dr. Jeff Martin with the particle accelerator. He and his team broke a Canadian particle physics record this summer – producing 900,000 ultracold neutrons with each proton pulse.
The breakthrough in the volume produced could lead to advanced knowledge about the Big Bang-created universe.
'Currently a big problem in physics is we don't know why the universe has matter in it. We can't explain that. It seems like it should have an equal amount of antimatter, but we don't see any antimatter anywhere,' Martin explained.
'(The experiment) should enable us to discover something about antimatter, why there isn't any antimatter… the thought is: maybe the neutron does violate symmetry in some way, and we've just never seen it before because we couldn't measure precisely enough.'
Through the process of taking protons and smashing them into atomic nuclei, neutrons are released at a very high heat. By cooling them, the neutrons bounce off materials instead of moving through them and can be bottled and examined.
'We had lots of simulations that were telling us that we should be able to break (the record). But these experiments have a long history of you open the valve and nothing comes out,' Martin said.
'When you had an experiment like that where you open the valve and nothing comes out, usually the second and third tries are also like that until you really figure out what's going on. It just shows that we really understand what's going on in our experiments.'
The team, including professors and students from across Canada, collaborates with international scientists from Japan and conduct the studies at the TRIUMF particle accelerator lab in Vancouver. Martin has been working on the experiments since 2008.
In the next few months, the team hopes to pass safety inspections on its latest neutron refrigerator iteration, which will hopefully produce up to 50 million ultracold neutrons. The volume would surpass the current world record held by a research team based in Switzerland.
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'Once we get there no one can touch us,' Martin said.
The experiment has secondary effects, too; new technologies developed for the study, such as diamond-like carbon coatings and sensitive magnetic sensors, may have applications in medical and other fields.
Martin said if the team can market the sensors to the right people, medical processes, including MRIs, can be greatly improved.
'Potentially, our magnetic technologies developed in Winnipeg also could be useful for medical applications,' he said.
Nicole BuffieMultimedia producer
Nicole Buffie is a reporter for the Free Press city desk. Born and bred in Winnipeg, Nicole graduated from Red River College's Creative Communications program in 2020 and worked as a reporter throughout Manitoba before joining the Free Press newsroom as a multimedia producer in 2023. Read more about Nicole.
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