El CERN: un desconocido para muchos

"¿El CERN? ¿Higgs? ¿Qué es eso? ¿Dónde dices que has estado? ¿Ginebra? ¡qué bonito! ¿y has subido a la montaña?"
Pues ésas son las preguntas que me han hecho a la vuelta de la estancia más o menos. Así es que concluyo diciéndome a mí misma que el CERN es el gran desconocido de Suiza por la mayoría de los españoles, que ignoran que una cierta cantidad de su dinero va a parar a ese lugar en el que se hacen suposiciones teóricas y comprobaciones experimentales que al final, repercuten en la vida cotidiana y en la forma de entenderla.
Así es que desde mi blog, quiero contribuir humildemente a acercar este misterio a todos los que estén interesados en entender un poco más qué se hace allí y por qué se hace. El material que ofrezco es el que he ido recopilando en el CERN a través de los conferenciantes y guías que tan amablemente nos atendieron y enseñaron durante esa semana y también he intentado resumir el fundamento de lo que se hace allí.
 
Para comenzar hay que decir que el Large Hadron Collider (LHC) es un gran anillo cercano a Ginebra de 27 kilómetros de longitud, situado a una profundidad de unos 80-175 metros. En él se inyectan unas partículas que se hacen colisionar. Las partículas generadas en la colisión se detectan y se estudian en diferentes puntos del anillo. Existen cuatro detectores de partículas destinado cada uno de ellos al estudio de diferentes proyectos y se denominan ALICE, CMS, ATLAS y LHCb.
imagen tomada de CERN

En este rap del Gran Colisionador de Hadrones ("The Large Hadron Collider rap"), compuesto por Kate McAlpine (or Alpinekat), los mismos investigadores nos van a resumir qué es el LHC.
 
 
 
The Large Hadron Rap (credit Kate McAlpine (or Alpinekat) and Will Barras)
Twenty-seven kilometers of tunnel under ground
Designed with mind to send protons around
A circle that crosses through Switzerland and France
Sixty nations contribute to scientific advance
Two beams of protons swing round, through the ring they ride
‘Til in the hearts of the detectors, they’re made to collide
And all that energy packed in such a tiny bit of room
Becomes mass, particles created from the vacuum
And then…
      LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone
     ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions
     CMS and ATLAS are two of a kind
     They’re looking for whatever new particles they can find.
     The LHC accelerates the protons and the lead
     And the things that it discovers will rock you in the head.
We see asteroids and planets, stars galore
We know a black hole resides at each galaxy’s core
But even all that matter cannot explain
What holds all these stars together – something else remains
This dark matter interacts only through gravity
And how do you catch a particle there’s no way to see
Take it back to the conservation of energy
And the particles appear, clear as can be
You see particles flying, in jets they spray
But you notice there ain’t nothin’, goin’ the other way
You say, “My law has just been violated – it don’t make sense!
There’s gotta be another particle to make this balance.”
And it might be dark matter, and for first
Time we catch a glimpse of what must fill most of the known ‘Verse.
Because…
LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone...etc
 
Antimatter is sort of like matter’s evil twin
Because except for charge and handedness of spin
They’re the same for a particle and its anti-self
But you can’t store an antiparticle on any shelf
Cuz when it meets its normal twin, they both annihilate
Matter turns to energy and then it dissipates
When matter is created from energy
Which is exactly what they’ll do in the LHC
You get matter and antimatter in equal parts
And they try to take that back to when the universe starts
The Big Bang – back when the matter all exploded
But the amount of antimatter was somehow eroded
Because when we look around we see that matter abounds
But antimatter’s nowhere to be found.
That’s why…
LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone...etc
The Higgs Boson – that’s the one that everybody talks about.
And it’s the one sure thing that this machine will sort out
If the Higgs exists, they ought to see it right away
And if it doesn’t, then the scientists will finally say
“There is no Higgs! We need new physics to account for why
Things have mass. Something in our Standard Model went awry.”
But the Higgs – I still haven’t said just what it does
They suppose that particles have mass because
There is this Higgs field that extends through all space
And some particles slow down while other particles race
Straight through like the photon – it has no mass
But something heavy like the top quark, it’s draggin’ its ***
And the Higgs is a boson that carries a force
And makes particles take orders from the field that is its source.
They’ll detect it….
Now some of you may think that gravity is strong
Cuz when you fall off your bicycle it don’t take long
Until you hit the earth, and you say, “Dang, that hurt!”
But if you think that force is powerful, you’re wrong.
You see, gravity – it’s weaker than Weak
And the reason why is something many scientists seek
They think about dimensions – we just live in three
But maybe there are some others that are too small to see
It’s into these dimensions that gravity extends
Which makes it seem weaker, here on our end.
And these dimensions are “rolled up” – curled so tight
That they don’t affect you in your day to day life
But if you were as tiny as a graviton
You could enter these dimensions and go wandering on
And they'd find you...
When LHCb sees where the antimatter’s gone
ALICE looks at collisions of lead ions
CMS and ATLAS are two of a kind
They’re looking for whatever new particles they can find.
The LHC accelerates the protons and the lead
And the things that it discovers will rock you in the head!
 
Bueno, pues esto es lo que estos días hemos estado viendo y aprendiendo y es lo que voy a ir comentando poco a poco a través de comentarios, fotografías y vídeos tomados allí. Espero así poner mi granito de arena para acercar al CERN a los alumnos y a todos los que estéis interesados en aprender algo más siempre.
 
 



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