Introduction to me, High-Energy Physics and research at Belle

Jan Schümann

Belle CollaborationTsukuba, Japan

Where I come from:

Europe

Germany

Henstedt-Ulzburg ... small village of 25.000 citizens

My village ... not too much unlike Japan

My home

About Germany

• reunited since 1990 (before East and West)

• now 82.5 Million citizens

• about 1000 km long and 500 km wide, 350.000 km2, 2.252 billion euro per year GNP

• Currency: 1 euro = 150 Yen

• My life:

• lived with my family

• went back home for Christmas holiday this year

• usually go home for summer before

www.deutschland.de

Christmas in Germany

Christmas and New Year

Life in Germany

About myself

• 1997/8 exchange student in Calgary, Canada

• 2000 graduated in Germany, University of Hamburg, Diplom (master degree)

• 2000 did research at DESY (Deutsches Elektronen SYnchrotron), an experiment similar to Belle (see later)

• 2005 made my PhD (Hakushi) at the National Taiwan University (Taiwan)

• 2006 postdoc at United Taiwan University

• now postdoc/researcher at Belle, KEK, in the JSPS (Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science) program

• Future: plan to stay in research, final goal, Professor •... be my students ;)

University of Hamburg and Physics Dep.

Dep. of Physics

DESY

Belle, Ko-Energy-Kasokuki-Kenkyukiko

How I came to study physics• always fascinated by the fundamental questions of physics

• stars and the universe (what we see in the sky and why)• relativity (Einstein, Hawking)• fundamental forces and laws of physics (the origin of

• everything we see), Quantum!• Grand Unified Theory (GUT) ... one theory for everything

• now there are 2-3

• started studying physics in Hamburg

• more and more interested in the fundamental concepts (Particle Physics and Quantum Mechanics, even Quantum Gravity)

• continued step after step in physics research, getting more and more specialized

• now doing research all over the world ...

the twin paradox

About Particle Physics

• What is a particle and what particles are there?

• Why are we interested in particles and their behavior?

• What do we want to discover? What are the most important questions right now?

• How do we see these particles?

• How does the work as a particle physicist look like?

What is a (fundamental) particle?

• Democritus (400BC): There are atoms.

• around 1900, find structure

• nucleus is made of protons and neutrons

• protons are made of quarks

• so far, we think quarks, electrons are fundamental

• scale: electron a hair, proton 1cm, atom 30 football fields

What particles are there?

• Quarks: building stones

• Leptons: electrons, muons, tau

• Neutrinos: invisible particles

• Three generations = 3 types of quarks

• BUT: quarks never appear alone

• Quarks build hadrons (3 quarks)

• Quarks build mesons (2 quarks)

But there is more!

• some ‘special’ particles are the carriers of forces

• for different forces, different particles

• There are 3 forces and carriers:

• gravity (Stars, Earth): graviton

• Weak and Electromagnetic (Electroweak): photons, W and Z

• Strong: gluons (quarks, protons)

• Star Trek?

Why do we want to know this?

• humans always want to understand the basic principles of things surrounding them.

• new knowledge enables new technologies (X-rays, TV (yes, really!), etc.)

• many fundamental questions still unresolved:

• Why are we here?

• Why is there only matter and no antimatter?

• Why do we have mass?

• What happened after the Big Bang?

• Today, no single theory has succeeded to explain the behavior of particles, gravity and electomagnetics together and why things are the way they are.

• We need at least two: Standard Model (particles) and Relativity (gravity)

What do we want, CAN we discover?

• Basic questions of particle physics:

• Where does the mass come from?

• Why is there no antimatter?

• Which theory can describe our universe?

• We are limited by the energy we can produce to probe particles and the particle properties.

• With today’s technology, we can already simulate the universe less than a nano-second (0.000000001 seconds) after the Big Bang ... but it’s not enough

currently, no one needs to diet because we have no mass!we should have had same

amount of matter and antimatterat the Big Bang!

Grand Unified Theory, Supersymmetry,

Supergravity, Sting theory

Present research

• Here in Japan (already working): Try to find out, WHY we only have matter, no antimatter on earth.

• In Europe (starting this year): What is the particle that generates MASS?

• Each experiment

• costs BILLIONS of Euro (US $)

• requires great effort and planing (dealing with very small, very fast particles)

• is only possible in BIG collaborations (Japan: ~350 researchers, Europe: ~5000 researchers!)

• We hope to uncover the answers to these questions... but maybe the world is different from what we expect ...

How do we see these particles?

• Fundamental particles are

• too small

• too fast

• interact too fast

• don’t exist in the form we need

• build BIG machines:

• accelerators to create the energy and particles

• detectors to make the particles visible

to easily observe them

QuickTime™ and aGIF decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

3 km around!

Detecting particles

• requires different technology for different particles

• too see (nearly) everything, build multi-layer detector

• Parts to see: Aerogel, SVD ladder, Electronics

Things to touch:

• Aerogel:

• used to identify particles

• some particles are faster than light in this aerogel! (Don’t worry, it is OK with Einstein).

• SVD (Silicon Vertex Detector):

• very expensive detector

• used to find, where the particle came from

• Part of Electronics:

• we have to develop and make MANY such things

So what do we do?

• a lot of electronics work: building, maintaining and upgrading the detector and accelerator

• a lot of computer work: saving, analyzing simulating and storing HUGE amounts of data

• a lot of programming: finding the particles we want out of a HUGE amount of data (needle in a haystack)

• saved nearly 3 billion eventssometimes looking for only a few events

LOTS of computers ONLYto save the data!

constant work required on ALL detector parts

My work and how the results look like:

• installing faster data transfer modules to the experiment

• searching for specific particle decays

• write programs

• use a computer farm to run

• carefully choose my events

Worldwide research!

• research in a very international community

• main language: ENGLISH

• many international conferences: Korea, Italy, Moscow, Hawaii, etc.

• thanks to physics, I now speak: • German• English• Chinese• soon also Japanese

How is this research important to us?

• Many new technologies are side-products of top-end science (X-ray, WWW)

• The understanding of the fundamental forces, properties, theories may allow new discoveries

• Research communities contribute to the society:

• making it more international

• generating a lot of local business

• bring science closer to people around

• My research is fundamental, so NO immediate benefit

• Multinational research -> not national interests, but global gain of knowledge!

And so:

• Science is becoming more and more international

• It is impossible to do top-end research without english!

• Science offers more than just a job! If you want to see the world, become a flight attendent, tourist guide or scientist!

• English should not discourage you, you will learn as you advance in your studies!

• You get to make friends ALL over the world. In many countries, I can call a friend if I go there (for a conference?) now.

• Science is FUN!