Back to work

Today I am back in my office and physics, that I never stopped to think of, is unfriendly urging in my mind. Besides my work as a reviewer for Mathematical Reviews that I try to do at my best, I have not forgotten to look around in the blogosphere. In these days there is a lot of fuss about a recent paper by Fermi Collaboration (see here). You can find some discussion here but it is not the only blog discussing this matter: An inflamed discussion is also here. Is loop quantum gravity dead? I can only spend a few words here by saying that is really too early to draw such conclusions but the results from Fermi Collaboration are really beautiful and open the premises for a bright future in the observation of gamma ray bursts. I would like to remember here the point of view of Steven Weinberg claiming that we finally hit exact truths on Nature (the bitch not the journal as  Tommaso Dorigo uses to say ). These truths are special relativity and quantum mechanics. I share this idea and the more beautiful idea that we are indeed able to reach such exact truths, the same mathematicians are able to achieve. On the same ground, if some experiment should come out claiming that these theories should be modified, I would be glad for one thing: A great opportunity for my generation to put hands on a deeper truth.

I am still working on a perturbation analysis of a non-perturbative Higgs field interacting with a fermion. I am solving Heisenberg equations of motion with a very large coupling for the Higgs. I hope to get some further time to complete the computations that may become really involved.

About QCD there is few to say. I have got my paper accepted for publication as you may know that implied a nice correspondence with Terry Tao. We can say that, after the very good Terry’s intervention, the proof of the mapping theorem is indeed complete. Another paper hit my interest and arose from a Japanese group working on lattice (see here). I have had an email exachange with Hideo Suganuma and surely their results are something to think about in depth. I hope to see other papers in the near future as this area of physics is very active indeed.

Finally, great expectations are for LHC. It will start on November and we hope to see results very soon. Infancy problems should be overcome and it is time to see the face of Higgs (the particle not the professor). Good luck, folks!

LHC will start at 3.5 TeV

A communication to press was released by CERN about the start-up of the collider after repairs. You can find it here. LHC will start at half of the promised beam energy on November this year and this only after all the tests on the connections will be ended with success. I have read a recent article on the New York Times here and my personal view is that all will be up and running on the promised time. Meantime, we can only wish the best of lucks at people working on LHC.

LHC will stop for at least eight months

The damages following LHC accident, occurred last month, are more serious than expected. Some design errors have been identified into the valves that should regulate the quantity of helium flowing in such cases. Helium entered inside the ring and the valves were underdimensioned for the aims. Bad news is that repairing damages will require at least eight months. Optimistically one can hope starting of operation on May or June 2009. An article can be read in Nature about (see here). Dynamics of the accident is given by CERN here.

Some delays at LHC

An incident happened at LHC while operations were in course to reach 5 TeV aim. You can read here and read Jester’s blog for other links and comments.

This will imply some delays in the initial optimistic schedule.

Update: The question is rather serious. News talk of about two months delay with respect to scheduled program. I have found another article about on New York Times.

Further update: CERN press release is here.

LHC: Cheers!

I was not there today but this photo at CERN says all:

Bravi!

LHC: First circulating beam!

CERN announced today the successful run of the first circulating beam in the 27 km ring of the LHC. You can find a communication here. There was a lot of excitement about this event but my view that this success is really tiny with respect to the findings will come out from CERN next years with this machine.

Blogosphere is rather active due to this. See the blog of Tommaso Dorigo that is there at CMS control room. Also Cosmic Variance has a real time report about this event. Tommaso’s blog has also some link to follow the event through video streaming (see here).

Update: A must read is the beatiful report given by Jester.

LHC: Toward the aims

We are all waiting for the start-up of LHC foreseen for September 10th. People at CERN are working toward this goal and another success has been achieved with the first test of the clockwise injection system from the SPS to the LHC. We just report this milestone because as all physics community we are eager to see the first results flowing down from this machine. I think there will be particle physics before and after LHC and the former will be much different from the latter.

Here is the CERN news.