Lifeboat Foundation

Dark matter is an unknown type of matter present in the universe that could be of particle origin. One of the most complete theoretical frameworks that includes a dark matter candidate is supersymmetry. Many supersymmetric models predict the existence of a new stable, invisible particle called the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), which has the right properties to be a dark matter particle.

The ATLAS Collaboration at CERN has recently reported two new results on searches for an LSP that exploited the experiment’s full Run 2 data sample taken at 13 TeV proton-proton collision energy. The analyses looked for the pair production of two heavy supersymmetric particles, each of which decays to observable Standard Model particles and an LSP in the detector.

The results are fascinating and spur the imagination, but don’t start investing in flux capacitors yet. This experiment also shows us that sending even a simulated particle back in time requires serious outside manipulation. To create such an external force to manipulate even one physical particle’s quantum waves is well beyond our abilities.

“We demonstrate that time-reversing even ONE quantum particle is an unsurmountable task for nature alone,” study author Vinokur wrote to the New York Times in an email [emphasis original]. “The system comprising two particles is even more irreversible, let alone the eggs — comprising billions of particles — we break to prepare an omelet.”

A press release from the Department of Energy notes that for the “timeline required for [an external force] to spontaneously appear and properly manipulate the quantum waves” to appear in nature and unscramble an egg “would extend longer than that of the universe itself.” In other words, this technology remains bound to quantum computation. Subatomic spas that literally turn back the clock aren’t happening.

Continue reading “Researchers successfully sent a simulated elementary particle back in time” »

High-energy neutrinos have been traced back to a flaring supermassive black hole known as a blazar. The long-sought link opens the door to an entirely new way to study the universe.

A new theory proposes that faster-than-light particles known as tachyons could answer a lot of questions about the universe, writes Robyn Arianrhod.

The image mosaic was created using 16 years’ worth of data from the Hubble Space Telescope, and it shows roughly 265,000 galaxies stretching back 13.3 billion years, to just 500 million years after the Big Bang.

Background: This isn’t the first Hubble deep-field image. The first one was released back in 1995, with further deep-field images following in 2003, 2004, and 2012. However, this is by far the most comprehensive. It was created by weaving together several of the previous Hubble photos. The image, dubbed the Hubble Legacy Field, represents 7,500 separate exposures. It contains about 30 times as many galaxies as the previous shots. The image above is just a section of the whole: you can see the full thing here.

A time machine: Because many of the galaxies Hubble captures are so far away, it has taken billions of years for their light to reach us. That makes the telescope a sort of time machine, letting us see galaxies as they were billions of years ago.

Continue reading “This Hubble photo captures more than 265,000 galaxies in one image” »

Light particles after the Big Bang eventually formed the ‘cosmic microwave background’ which astronomers can see all aglow.

Cosmologists have a new guess about why the universe is expanding outward faster than data says it ought to.

The hypothesis, according to research first shared on the preprint server ArXiv in November, goes as follows: When the universe was just a mere 100,000 years old, a mysterious energy field that scientists are calling “early dark energy” formed, rapidly pushing the still-forming cosmos outward even faster than before.

Another 100,000 years after that, the research suggests, the strange energy field faded away — and left the young, accelerated universe to its own devices.

Continue reading “Bizarre New Theory: Something Tampered With the Early Universe” »

Enough gold, uranium and other heavy elements about equal in mass to all of Earth’s oceans likely came to the solar system from the collision of two neutron stars billions of years ago, a new study finds.

If the same event were to happen today, the light from the explosion would outshine the entire night sky, and potentially prove disastrous for life on Earth, according to the new study’s researchers.

Recent findings have suggested that much of the gold and other elements heavier than iron on the periodic table was born in the catastrophic aftermath of colliding neutron stars, which are the ultradense cores of stars left behind after supernova explosions.

Continue reading “Ancient Neutron-Star Crash Made Enough Gold and Uranium to Fill Earth’s Oceans” »

Gravitational waves, first detected in 2016, offer a new window on the universe, with the potential to tell us about everything from the time following the Big Bang to more recent events in galaxy centers.

And while the billion-dollar Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detector watches 24/7 for gravitational waves to pass through the Earth, new research shows those waves leave behind plenty of “memories” that could help detect them even after they’ve passed.

“That gravitational waves can leave permanent changes to a detector after the gravitational waves have passed is one of the rather unusual predictions of general relativity,” said doctoral candidate Alexander Grant, lead author of “Persistent Gravitational Wave Observables: General Framework,” published April 26 in Physical Review D.

Continue reading “Gravitational waves leave a detectable mark, physicists say” »