Future Technology Trends

Smashing particles together at a very high velocity produces a shower of matter. By examining the intricate fireworks that intense beams create, scientists can discover new types of physics. This helps to test many strange theoretical concepts. Supersymmetry predicts that for every boson there is a corresponding fermion and vice versa. This effectively doubles the amount of fundamental particles. Searches for SUSY have turned up empty handed thus far. If they do exist, they may be more massive than what many previously thought. There is even the possibility that they will not found at all by the large hadron collider (LHC).  Read More »

Scientists are probing novel materials to create matter with weird properties. They can make something that shares characteristics with an elusive particle. A high-pressure route to generate magnetic monopole dimers was published in a recent issue of the prestigious Nature communications. Fundamental monopoles are a theoretical concept. Paul Dirac was the first physicist to suggest their existence back in in the 1930’s. Every magnet has a north and south pole. You can’t get around this by cutting a magnet in half. If you go all the way down to the sub-atomic level, electrons have their own dipolar moment. Monopoles, on the other hand, can be either north or south. This is related to how an electric charge is positive or negative. Anti-monopoles and monopoles connect to one another by an unobservable Dirac string. These particles would likely be massive. Super-fast proton collisions at the large hadron collider convert kinetic movement into matter. Even with the inauguration of this machine, the prospect of attaining a monopole would require energy numbers that are many orders of magnitude higher than what the LHC does. This puts it out of reach for accelerators or most other known processes. Other tests to find them have not been that successful. Physicists, can make quasiparticles that mimic the functioning of these monopoles.  Read More »

Neutrons are electrically neutral particles found inside atoms. They are composed of a number of quarks and gluons. When cooled to low temperatures they move at a pace of only a few meters a second. Specialized traps store them for hundreds of seconds. Their lack of charge makes them ideal for use in certain experimental physics tests. With a current technique, chilled liquid deuterium serves as the source of the particles.  The neutrons are then reflected by blades of a turbine and this causes them to lose much of their momentum. That technology enables the collection of 10 ultra–cold neutrons (UCN) per cubic centimeter. Researchers have investigated a better technique that could supplant this previous one. Read More »

Scientists from the Polytechnic University of València, Spain’s National Research Council (CSIC) and the University of València have made progress towards attaining acoustic undetectability. They introduce a novel way of constructing specialized devices that have this capability. It builds on previous work in the field. The idea of the science is to shield an object from sound waves in order to make it invisible from certain types of probing. Sonar for instance, is one way to detect submarines and other underwater vehicles. The researchers use a prototype 2-dimensional cloak that can enable sounds of a certain frequency to pass by it as if nothing was there. The cloaking device has 120 aluminum cylinders that are each 15 nanometers in diameter. These parts surround a 22.5-centimeter cylinder. To synthesize this volumetric shape required the use of genetic algorithms. The numerical programs emulate evolutionary processes to obtain a desired answer to the problem. The software is part of the novelty of this research. Simulated annealing also helped with the design of the technology. These methods may speed up the processes of building these machines. Read More »

Gravitational waves (GW) have been known to exist for nearly a hundred years and are a generic prediction of general relatively.  Gravity has the capability of distorting space-time.  Gravitational ripples can move at the speed of light and they diminish in strength as they continue their journey.  Strong GW’s can be created by the massive power of black hole binary systems as one example.  These waves have not been detected as of 2011, but researchers are intensely working towards that goal.  Their eventual measurement is a sure bet for most physicists as Einstein’s theories have a solid footing.  It has been a difficult feat to accomplish since the oscillations only weakly interact with matter.  Now researchers from the Max Planck Institute and the Leibniz University Hannover have found a solution to this issue.  They can use special light sources to enhance a detector known as GEO 600 by 50%. The instrument is based on a design by the Australian National University.  Read More »

The Large Hadron Collider may be on the verge discovering new particles.  Enormous amounts of protons are currently zipping along the 17 mile accelerator and smashing into one another.  As they annihilate, they generate an intricate shower of subatomic matter.  Many physicists have been fairly modest when predicting the exact number that the machine may actually uncover.  The higgs boson is the leading contender that is expected to be seen at the energy levels being probed.  Other light supersymmetric particles are possible as well.  The neutralino, for instance, might help explain dark matter that can normally only be detected only due gravitational effects.  While the LHC is an engineering marvel that surpasses almost any other thing that man has ever built, it is still not powerful enough to solve as many mysteries as physicists would like.  Quite a few theoreticians expect to see physics that doesn’t conform to the standard model at the LHC.  However, ever higher energies will be needed in the future to rule out many of  the vacua that are inherent to the leading contender for a TOE i.e. string theory.  There are limitations to how fast protons (or anything else) can be accelerated using existing technology.  A novel way of speeding up specific types of matter in less space is known as laser wakefield acceleration.  Future particle accelerators may take advantage of this method in order to attain a higher velocity.   Read More »