The universe is a really amazing place. Who would have thought that the mantle would be a water reservoir and contribute to the Earth’s water cycle? That is what some scientists recently suggested in a Science article. If I understand it, the article does not say that there are oceans in the mantle, rather that water is mixed with the molten rock which descends into the mantle (and which comes up).
It can be found at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6189/1265
For my own projects I have started studying a bit of geophysics recently, so expect another geophysics related post.
Monday, June 30, 2014
Thursday, June 12, 2014
The future of HEP: international collaboration
I read reports about the Particle Physics Project Prioritization Panel (P5) report, and have skimmed the P5 report itself. I do think that the future of particle physics lies with neutrino physics, but I am sure I am biased.
One thing I am certain of is that future big physics (or big science) should be done under the formality of international agreements as a fundamentally international collaboration. This is not only that such big projects require more funding than any nation desires to provide and requires more expertise than any one nation can provide, but because of the nature of big physics and the nature modern (especially democratic) governments.
The nature of big physics is that projects take 15-60 years from initial concept to completion. This is a large time scale, is a significant fraction of a human life, and is at least greater than one career cycle for the scientists (time spent between a scientist starting the PhD and acquiring a tenure-tracked position after a postdoc). During this time, funding and the interest of scientists (which depends on the prospect of future funding in addition to actual scientific interest) must be maintained above a minimum or the project is a complete failure. There are additional thresholds at which if the interest and funding drops below for even a short time (a year or two) results in significant deficiencies in the program. These deficiencies basically mean that promised results become impossible and significant effort and funding is wasted.
The nature of modern (democratic) governments is that they are made up of politicians whose primary concerns are politics and the next election. As such their vision is only of the next 2, 4, 5, or 8 years. This means that a big physics project is many multiples of a political cycle. Due to the changes of politics (and even the changes in the global situation) there will be times of austerity as well as times of stimulus. The success of long term projects or even the long term efficiency of the political efforts are not of primary concern to governments.
Both times of austerity and stimulus can be damaging for the success of big physics. Times of stimulus might cause a program to be initiated which is too large. Then even normal times can mean that the support of the project is below what is necessary to achieve the desired results and possibly some other project would be a better use of the resources. Times of of austerity are an obvious problem point, here the the support of the project might even drop below the minimum amount and the project becomes a complete waste of resources and effort.
One possible solution is to make projects international. European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) provides a template for how to do this. CERN is set up by treaty between the member states, resulting in an organization whose purpose it is to insure the long term success of the big physics project. This results in states being encouraged by international law to contribute the necessary amount for the success of the project and if some state (due to politics or necessity) does not contribute the necessary amount, the rest of the member states can contribute what is necessary for the successful completion of the project. This structure not only allows bigger projects to be attempted than any one state can realize, and enhances international collaboration, but also protects against the vagaries of modern (democratic) governments.
This is advantageous even for the biggest and richest countries like the United States. I know I was not alone in imagining worse case scenarios for some spectacular physics programs during the recent government shutdown in the United States.
It is the CERN model that researchers in the Latin American countries of Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil have followed in proposing a new underground laboratory in the southern hemisphere. Here in Latin America, the needed expertise for leading research obviously requires an international approach. However, following the CERN model for funding also allows long term scientific projects to not be at the mercy of short term democratic vagaries.
Further reading on P5:
http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2014/05/new-plan-u.s.-particle-physics-go-international
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/may-2014/proposed-plan-for-the-future-of-us-particle-physics
http://www.usparticlephysics.org/p5/
Further reading on ANDES:
http://andeslab.org/
Further reading on CERN:
http://council.web.cern.ch/council/en/governance/Convention.html
One thing I am certain of is that future big physics (or big science) should be done under the formality of international agreements as a fundamentally international collaboration. This is not only that such big projects require more funding than any nation desires to provide and requires more expertise than any one nation can provide, but because of the nature of big physics and the nature modern (especially democratic) governments.
The nature of big physics is that projects take 15-60 years from initial concept to completion. This is a large time scale, is a significant fraction of a human life, and is at least greater than one career cycle for the scientists (time spent between a scientist starting the PhD and acquiring a tenure-tracked position after a postdoc). During this time, funding and the interest of scientists (which depends on the prospect of future funding in addition to actual scientific interest) must be maintained above a minimum or the project is a complete failure. There are additional thresholds at which if the interest and funding drops below for even a short time (a year or two) results in significant deficiencies in the program. These deficiencies basically mean that promised results become impossible and significant effort and funding is wasted.
The nature of modern (democratic) governments is that they are made up of politicians whose primary concerns are politics and the next election. As such their vision is only of the next 2, 4, 5, or 8 years. This means that a big physics project is many multiples of a political cycle. Due to the changes of politics (and even the changes in the global situation) there will be times of austerity as well as times of stimulus. The success of long term projects or even the long term efficiency of the political efforts are not of primary concern to governments.
Both times of austerity and stimulus can be damaging for the success of big physics. Times of stimulus might cause a program to be initiated which is too large. Then even normal times can mean that the support of the project is below what is necessary to achieve the desired results and possibly some other project would be a better use of the resources. Times of of austerity are an obvious problem point, here the the support of the project might even drop below the minimum amount and the project becomes a complete waste of resources and effort.
One possible solution is to make projects international. European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) provides a template for how to do this. CERN is set up by treaty between the member states, resulting in an organization whose purpose it is to insure the long term success of the big physics project. This results in states being encouraged by international law to contribute the necessary amount for the success of the project and if some state (due to politics or necessity) does not contribute the necessary amount, the rest of the member states can contribute what is necessary for the successful completion of the project. This structure not only allows bigger projects to be attempted than any one state can realize, and enhances international collaboration, but also protects against the vagaries of modern (democratic) governments.
This is advantageous even for the biggest and richest countries like the United States. I know I was not alone in imagining worse case scenarios for some spectacular physics programs during the recent government shutdown in the United States.
It is the CERN model that researchers in the Latin American countries of Mexico, Argentina, Chile, and Brazil have followed in proposing a new underground laboratory in the southern hemisphere. Here in Latin America, the needed expertise for leading research obviously requires an international approach. However, following the CERN model for funding also allows long term scientific projects to not be at the mercy of short term democratic vagaries.
Further reading on P5:
http://news.sciencemag.org/physics/2014/05/new-plan-u.s.-particle-physics-go-international
http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/article/may-2014/proposed-plan-for-the-future-of-us-particle-physics
http://www.usparticlephysics.org/p5/
Further reading on ANDES:
http://andeslab.org/
Further reading on CERN:
http://council.web.cern.ch/council/en/governance/Convention.html
Saturday, June 7, 2014
Christian anniversaries
Tomorrow (June 8) is Pentecost. According to Christians, this is the 1971st (or 1973rd) anniversary of the visual manifestation of the Holy Spirit's presence with the early christian church. A bit over a week ago, May 29, was Ascension Day, the anniversary of Christ's return to God to be humanities eternal Lord and Saviour.
As an american protestant, the only Christian holidays which I really knew about were Easter and Christmas. While Halloween (All Saint's Eve) had some christian (Catholic) root, the US celebration is very removed from such roots. I knew that there were other christian holidays, but I thought of them as 'Catholic' and so unimportant to a protestant like myself. I was very surprised by the holidays celebrated in Europe. For example, in very post-christian Sweden, the holidays Epiphany, Ascension Day, and Pentecost were celebrated.
While Epiphany might deserve more study, it doesn't seem to be religiously different than Christmas, a date which appears to have been chosen for other reasons rather than it's significance to christian events.
The events in a significant portion of all 4 canonical gospels deal with Christ's final days. His death was during the jewish Passover festival and He rose again (Easter) on Nisan 16 (according to the letters of Paul). Forty days after this, according to the synoptic gospels, Christ returned to heaven. Ten days after that, on the jewish festival of Shavuot, the visual manifestation of God being present with the early church occurred as described in Acts.
All of these festivals: Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, and Ascension Day, are anniversaries of important dates in christianity and, like other anniversaries, are times to remember the past. Tomorrow will be the first time I remember this anniversary.
As an american protestant, the only Christian holidays which I really knew about were Easter and Christmas. While Halloween (All Saint's Eve) had some christian (Catholic) root, the US celebration is very removed from such roots. I knew that there were other christian holidays, but I thought of them as 'Catholic' and so unimportant to a protestant like myself. I was very surprised by the holidays celebrated in Europe. For example, in very post-christian Sweden, the holidays Epiphany, Ascension Day, and Pentecost were celebrated.
While Epiphany might deserve more study, it doesn't seem to be religiously different than Christmas, a date which appears to have been chosen for other reasons rather than it's significance to christian events.
The events in a significant portion of all 4 canonical gospels deal with Christ's final days. His death was during the jewish Passover festival and He rose again (Easter) on Nisan 16 (according to the letters of Paul). Forty days after this, according to the synoptic gospels, Christ returned to heaven. Ten days after that, on the jewish festival of Shavuot, the visual manifestation of God being present with the early church occurred as described in Acts.
All of these festivals: Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, and Ascension Day, are anniversaries of important dates in christianity and, like other anniversaries, are times to remember the past. Tomorrow will be the first time I remember this anniversary.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
The nature of dark matter
I don't regularly read New Scientist, but the article titled "It's crunch time for dark matter if WIMPs don't show" attracted my interest.
My original interest in dark matter as an active researcher began 4 years ago. At that time I had just heard about an experiment searching for dark photons at Jefferson Laboratory. After visiting two workshops/meetings where dark matter was a topic of discussion, I began activity with the IceCube dark matter working group. Dark matter is interesting because it is the most obvious experimental evidence of new physics (physics that wasn't understood before my lifetime) and so is significant.
Since the time I became interested in dark matter as a researcher, I have been mostly interested in dark matter which wasn't the simplest candidate that theorists could invent (basically, the WIMP). Why should we expect all of the universe that we haven't been able to investigate to have some extreme simple phenomenology while the universe that we can investigate displays such rich behaviour?
The main reason why WIMPs are becoming less interesting is that we have failed to find new particles at the LHC. That is because one of the main motivations for WIMPs is that they were in the best motivated supersymmetry models, which are losing their lustre with each new collision at the LHC.
What we are seeing now is that the former paradigm (which existed without direct experimental evidence), that of supersymmetry and WIMPs, is ending. It will be interesting being an active researcher as a new paradigm is formed.
I personally favour theories with a rich dark sector. For many of these, our experiments just are not sensitive. On the other hand, as an experimentalist, what I am interested in is theories which predict some new signature that can be looked for in an experiment. Even if it is a long shot.
New Scientist article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229712.600-its-crunch-time-for-dark-matter-if-wimps-dont-show.html
Dark matter with rich phenomenology (example):
http://arxiv.org/abs/0909.0753
My original interest in dark matter as an active researcher began 4 years ago. At that time I had just heard about an experiment searching for dark photons at Jefferson Laboratory. After visiting two workshops/meetings where dark matter was a topic of discussion, I began activity with the IceCube dark matter working group. Dark matter is interesting because it is the most obvious experimental evidence of new physics (physics that wasn't understood before my lifetime) and so is significant.
Since the time I became interested in dark matter as a researcher, I have been mostly interested in dark matter which wasn't the simplest candidate that theorists could invent (basically, the WIMP). Why should we expect all of the universe that we haven't been able to investigate to have some extreme simple phenomenology while the universe that we can investigate displays such rich behaviour?
The main reason why WIMPs are becoming less interesting is that we have failed to find new particles at the LHC. That is because one of the main motivations for WIMPs is that they were in the best motivated supersymmetry models, which are losing their lustre with each new collision at the LHC.
What we are seeing now is that the former paradigm (which existed without direct experimental evidence), that of supersymmetry and WIMPs, is ending. It will be interesting being an active researcher as a new paradigm is formed.
I personally favour theories with a rich dark sector. For many of these, our experiments just are not sensitive. On the other hand, as an experimentalist, what I am interested in is theories which predict some new signature that can be looked for in an experiment. Even if it is a long shot.
New Scientist article:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229712.600-its-crunch-time-for-dark-matter-if-wimps-dont-show.html
Dark matter with rich phenomenology (example):
http://arxiv.org/abs/0909.0753
Sunday, June 1, 2014
The view
I have been inspired by many other great blogs to create one of my own. As a physicist, and a christian, I have views which I would like to express and which are not expressed in other popular blogs. I am not a giant, but may stand on their shoulders. I don't intend this blog primarily as a vehicle of my own ideas, but rather as a place to respond to the ideas of others. Nevertheless, I do intend to use this blog as a component of my scientific outreach.
In particular I take inspiration from Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal where Miles Kimball posts primarily about economics, but also about religion, science and humanities. Additionally, he has guest bloggers whose posts are sometimes even more thought provoking than his. I hope that I also will be joined by friends here, especially on areas where I am less knowledgable such as sciences outside of physics, philosophy, mathematics and religion.
As for me, I am an american, liberal (in politics), christian, experimental physicist. As a freshman student I had the fortune of meeting Freeman Dyson. He gave great advice (in essence that physics is something you do, not something you study) which I did not heed. It was only after I determined that high energy physics theory was not for me, and that what was needed to advance our understanding of the fundamental workings of the universe was experiment, that I really started engaging in research. This was done by first probing nucleons (with electrons) at Jefferson Laboratory and then by looking for signatures of dark matter as member of IceCube at universities in Sweden and Belgium, and now, here in Chile, by once more probing nucleons (this time with neutrinos at Fermilab) and initiating future neutrino experimental programs.
I expect to write at least two posts per week with at least one post about science and mathematics and at least one post about philosophy and religion.
Read Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal at
blog.supplysideliberal.com
Read Confessions of a Supply-Side Liberal at
blog.supplysideliberal.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)