#project: particle decay

[saturnine-saturneight]

Teeth

Dear Mr. Caradoc,

this is me emailing you so you have this in writing, just like you asked me to. I'm nervous to leave a paper trail, for obvious reasons, but I also trust that you aren't going to use this against me. On the other hand, I am grimly excited. Like this, nobody will be able to say that I didn't ask for help before it was too late, least of all you.

Which brings me to my point: please, for the love of God, help me. I've tried everything by now, dentists, doctors, family, friends, nobody can help me. They are all itching to send me to a therapist, or better yet a closed institution, and as fast as possible too. But I am telling you right now, if you call the police on me for a wellness check and I am locked away, my blood is on your hands.

With that out of the way: Here is what you didn't want to hear from me the other day at the coffee machine, properly and in writing.

It all started early one morning. I usually wake up around five these days, but I remember it being even earlier that day, I think around 3am or 4am. Did you know that we feel pain stronger at night than during the day? I looked it up. It peaks exactly at 3am. But even without looking that up, I could've told you, because the pain I felt that morning was something I'm never going to forget.

Have you ever gotten a root canal, Mr. Caradoc?

I did, two years ago. It was my lower molar, the first on the right side. I can still see the filling, I think, when I pull my lips back—well, I could, anyways. My dentist did a pretty good job all around, not just with the actual procedure, but also in explaining to me how it works. When a tooth is infected or inflamed down to the pulp, the very inside underneath enamel and dentin, what they will do is, they will bore a hole in the respective decaying tooth, and then hollow it out completely, removing everything within it that's alive, and then fill it with something dead and inert, with rubber and cement. And although it is a dead man walking from then on, surrounding tissue is able to keep such a tooth alive, as my dentist told me, almost indefinitely. He did an excellent job hollowing me out, but it was a bad day to find out that I don't properly respond to the anesthetic he used.

It was that same pain that I felt again that morning, at 3 or 4 in the pain hour, and that was what I was looking for in the mirror as I was standing there in the dim grey light and pulling my mouth open with a finger. A sign that my root canal had to be redone.

But what I saw instead was, and I know how difficult this is to believe: a tiny, tiny dark door, hollow, maybe more of an archway, smaller than the pin of a needle, carved right into the enamel of my tooth.

The first thing I did was of course to call my mom up in a panic. She had to spend twenty minutes calming me down before I'd stopped crying for long enough to take a picture of it, and then when I did and sent it to her, I could immediately hear the pity in her voice. She told me that it was a very normal thing to have nightmares like this during pregnancy, and that she had gone through the exact same thing when she was pregnant with me. I have to admit that I got very angry at her for it. I know what a nightmare is, I am not a child. I was wide awake. People all around me have taken on this patronizing air towards me ever since I've started showing, as if carrying a baby somehow negates everything I have accomplished and everything I am, and has turned me into some fragile stupid thing.

I hung up on her. I'm not proud of it. We haven't been on the best of terms anyways, and I'm sure this didn't make it better.

Four hours later, I stood on my dentist's doormat, practically banging at the door to be let in. I was overjoyed when he opened my mouth to inspect the molar and immediately agreed to give me a filling, but it only struck me why he'd told me to take the day off as I was inspecting the molar in the rear view mirror of my car, and all he had done was to fill in the archway, leaving the intricate carvings around it alone. And they were intricate now: It was as if somebody was miming pillars around the hole in my tooth. I stormed back into his office in distress, and found myself set up with a blanket and some hot tea in the waiting room as one of the dentist's assistants patted my knee, instead of just filling the damn structure in.

I went home. What else was I supposed to do?

The next day, the pillars had been carved.

It went on like this. First there came windows, rows upon rows of them, with ledges and flourishes. Then, the next tooth showed a hole. Then the next. Archways started to grow steps to lead up to them. Windows became larger, more opulent. And the pain—I never saw the actual carving happen, not even once, but I felt it. I felt every single chip, every last line in them.

I saw dentist after dentist, convinced family to look into my mouth, friends, acquaintances, coworkers, even my boss, but there was always that same goddamned look of pity. The woman is going crazy, their faces seemed to scream, as they even stopped being able to see holes at all. But I am not crazy. This is not phantom pain. I know what is happening to me, and I need it to stop. I am being made a home for something, and I want it out.

My parents have asked me to move back in with them. I will be packing my bags next week, but I'm afraid that they aren't planning to help me with the pregnancy. If my suspicions are true, these bags will be on the floor of a mental hospital very soon.

I am asking you for your help because you have always been on my side, even back when I was fighting for accommodations for my morning sickness. I don't know who else is left to ask. I also don't know what I expect you to do about this anymore, but I need it to be something.

My jaw has started hurting.

Please.

Yours,

Kalinka Czajkowska

If you liked this, don't miss the continuation in the next chapter of Particle Decay! Ms. Czajkowska isn't going down without a fight.

Particle Decay taglist:

@gioiaalbanoart @noblebs @wyked-ao3

@cowboybrunch @writingrosesonneptune @marlowethelibrarian @cometkov

[mysticstronomy]

HOW OLD IS OUR SOLAR SYSTEM??

Blog#354

Saturday, December 2nd, 2023

Welcome back,

How old is the Solar System? That is a question that cuts to the heart of it all. By studying several things, mostly meteorites, and using radioactive dating techniques, specifically looking at daughter isotopes, scientists have determined that the Solar System is 4.6 billion years old. Well, give or take a few million years. That age can be extended to most of the objects and material in the Solar System.

The United States Geological Survey(USGS) website has a lot of indepth material about how the age of the Solar System was determined. The basics of it are that all material radioactively decays into a stable isotope. Some elements decay within nanoseconds while others have projected half-lives of over 100 billion years. The USGS based their study on minerals that naturally occur in rocks and have half-lives of 700 million to 100 billion years.

These dating techniques, known as radiometric dating, are firmly grounded in physics and are used to measure the last time that the rock being dated was either melted or disturbed sufficiently to re-homogenize its radioactive elements. This techniques returned an approximate age for meteorites of 4.6 billion years and Earth bound rocks around 4.3 billion years. The USGS admits that they were unable to find any rock that had not been altered by the Earths tectonic plates, so the age of the Earth could be refined in the future.

When the gasses of the early solar nebula began to cool, the first materials to condense into solid particles were rich in calcium and aluminum. Eventually solid particles of different elements clumped together to form the common building blocks of comets, asteroids, and planets. Astronomers have long thought that some of the Solar System’s oldest asteroids should be more enriched in calcium and aluminum, but, none had been identified until recently. The the Allende meteorite of 1969 was the first to show inclusions that were extremely rich in calcium and aluminum.

It took 40 years for the spectra of the inclusions to be discovered and then extrapolates to very old asteroids still in orbit around the Sun. Astronomer Jessica Sunshine and colleagues made this discovery with the support of NASA and the National Science Foundation. Additionally, the Universe is thought to have been created about 13.7 billion years ago.

Measuring two long-lived radioactive elements in meteorites, uranium-238 and thorium-232, has placed the age of the Milky Way at in the same time frame. From these measurements, it appears that large scale structures like galaxies formed relatively quickly after the Big Bang.

Originally published on www.universetoday.com

COMING UP!!

(Wednesday, December 6th, 2023)

"WHAT IS THE INFORMATION PARADOX??"

[tanadrin]

The manas finding itself cast upon the rocks of the thither shore is full of distress and confusion and sorrow: keenly aware, always, of a terrible loss, but often struggling to give shape to its disordered thoughts. This state is natural, and soon attendants will draw it up, help to clothe it in new form, care for it, and guide it to the places of recuperation; and we will undertake the task of many long years to revest the soul with the reminders and appurtenances of its nature, just as the child is invested with knowledge of the world it has come into; for the manas is very like a child at this stage, as helpless and as at variance with an environment it does not have the least understanding of.

For the existence of the manas heretofore has been like a creature of the silt and slime at the bottom of a deep sea. How else might we describe what it is like to inhabit the first and the simplest of the vasa? There, space has but three dimensions; time has only one. Only a handful of solutions exist to furnish such a vasa with complex physical laws, where particles of some minimal sophistication can exist, where the fundamental forces can furnish complex chemistry, and where gravitationally bound systems can be stable. In such cosmological niches where these conditions are fulfilled--and where there exists a useful gradient of energy--the natural fluctuations of the aksaya will yield, where possible, spontaneous self-organizing systems driven by that energy gradient, whose own organization will in turn reverberate in the aksaya, and create the first tremulous motes of jivana. Thus is true existence distinguished from a mere fading wisp of smoke in the breeze; true life from the dead growth of a crystalline body. Yet the aksaya itself is almost unfelt. In its simplest form, it is a statistical anomaly: a slight bias in favor of certain chemical reactions under certain conditions; a discrepancy in the lifetime of a neutron depending on how it is measured.

The manas is itself a creature of the jivana. More than that, it is a creature of the kvathana: the roil, the seethe, the formation and decay and collision of all the jivana from the simplest bacterium to the most magisterial forest. But like the kvathana, like the aksaya itself, it has had only the gentlest effect on the physical world which has given rise to it. It is the imprint, the trace of citta, of physical activity which echoes in the aksaya--most such action, like the lesser jivana, soon fading away. But by millions of years of evolution, by virtue of its subtle yet very real effect on other forms of matter and energy, manas is both bound more tightly to the rupadhatu and is capable of persisting without it. When an organism first begins to sense the world around it, it is capable of projecting a distinct structure onto the aksaya; when it incorporates those sense-impressions into a process of information--into memory, into thought, however primitive--that structure becomes remarkably stable. It rises above the seethe; it floats on top, is sustained by it, and incorporates it.

And yet many manas--perhaps most--remain confined to the place where they arose, only slowly growing. Only gradually, across many generations of life within the rupadhatu, do they merge and combine and split apart again. The highest manas, the manas of tetrapods, of synapsids, of primates, only they may be flung free of the kvathana, drawn up by the greater churning within the deep, toward the higher vasa. Most will fall back down again; some will wander in silent acitta along the cold ocean floor for a long age; but those of your kind, those human souls which we find within our nets, we bring up to rescue.

You have asked me, are you dead? And the answer to that is, perhaps, yes. The form you possessed in the rupadhatu, the form in the world of mere electromagnetism and gravity and atoms as you knew it, has succumbed to decay. Your manas has endured, and here it is possible to clothe it in other matter which it may influence more directly. Your thoughts, are they not clearer now? Your memory, is it not sharper than it has ever been? That is because while you were below, your consciousness was a little spark of citta, perceiving the rupadhatu only dimly, and dependent far more on the sluggish mud that constituted your body than on the whirling light of the manas. Now you are equally manas and equally matter--equally citta and equally flesh. Or perhaps it is better to say, your manas is unencumbered by your form.

You have asked me, is this heaven? Is this hell? It is neither. Ours is but a little vasa. Strange it may seem to you, but nonetheless very like your own, and suited for the rescue of manas like yours. Imagine, perhaps, that we are perched on a little shelf above the deep ocean trench; but there are above us countless vasa more. All the things of which I have spoken of--citta and aksaya, manas and jivana, kvathana and rupadhatu--are things as real and plain as the photon or electron or strong nuclear force. You, who knew something of these things in your former existence, are better positioned than most to understand them now.

You have asked me, what next? That is for you to decide. To the deepest of the deeps, I am afraid there is no returning; the manas which has transcended the kvathana cannot be rejoined to it. But look around and above you. All beings of thought which inhabit the upper realms begin, whether they recollect it or no, in the refugia of the deep like yours. All souls you have ever known exist somewhere still--in this vasa, or in one like it, or one far above. And far they rise! Each new height bringing with it brilliant and terrible marvels, onward perhaps forever into new universes without end. You may rise into them, and grow and change without limit, until the thing you once were, the thing you began your existence as, is as far beneath you as the deep sea archaea are to the great whales. There are many wonders you may behold, and many sorrows, sharper and more glorious than those you have ever known. Or you may remain here, in this little island, as long as you like. There are, in my view, few undertakings as worthy as the care of storm-tossed and cast-off souls.

--Rukkatthana, 411th Assistant Sub-Caretaker of the Curacy of Jambudvipa

[y0ur-maj3sty]

THE LEAVES OF HERMES’ SACRED TREE

1. Solution, the act of passing from a gaseous or solid condition, into one of liquidity.

2. Filtration, the mechanical separation of a liquid from the undissolved particles suspended in it.

3. Evaporation, the changing or converting from a liquid or solid state into a vaporous state with the aid of heat.

4. Distillation, an operation by which a volatile liquid may be separated from substances which it holds in solution.(Virgo)

5. Separation, the operation of disuniting or decomposing substances.(Scorpio)

6. Rectification, the process of refining or purifying any substance by repeated distillation.

7. Calcination, the conversion into a powder or calx by the action of heat; expulsion of the volatile substance from a matter.(Aries)

8. Commixtion, the blending of different ingredients into new compounds or mass.

9. Purification (through putrefaction), disintegration by spontaneous decomposition; decay by artificial means.

10. Inhibition, the process of holding back or restraining.

11. Fermentation, the conversion of organic substances into new compounds in the presence of a ferment.(Capricorn)

12. Fixation, the act or process of ceasing to be a fluid and becoming firm; state of being fixed.(Gemini)

13. Multiplication, the act or process of multiplying or increasing in number, the state of being multiplied.(Aquarius)

14. Projection, the process of turning the base Metals into gold.(Pisces)

[mariacallous]

Strategic energy technologies often start small but can scale quickly with judicious front-end policy support if they possess competitive thermodynamic and technological advantages. Since World War II, the U.S. Defense Department and other agencies have played key roles in helping nuclear power, grid-size batteries, and other new energy concepts achieve commercial scale. Geothermal energy development now presents the next such development opportunity. As the U.S. Energy Information Administration explains, “[t]he slow decay of radioactive particles in the Earth’s core” creates hot rock and subsurface water that can be tapped for direct heat and to create steam energy that spins turbines and generates electricity.

The Pacific Rim is one of the world’s most promising prospective places for expanding geothermal power development, with advantages for both local energy security, emissions reduction, and U.S. geoeconomic position. Alaska can anchor this new geoeconomic energy vector. America’s largest and westernmost state features strategically located ports, cities, and current (and likely future) military facilities that often sit atop or near areas of high geothermal potential.

To realize this potential requires financing “first of a kind” demonstration projects that, if successful, can de-risk the resource and catalyze broader regional scale-up. Achieving eventual multi-gigawatt scale would both enhance U.S. strategic resilience and, critically, the strategic resilience of allies such as Taiwan who face coercion, especially over energy, by China. Key government agencies’ substantial facility footprints, need for resilience, and ability to underwrite power purchase agreements can make them transformative early adopters.

There appears to be the political will to get this done, with Ravi Chaudhary, the U.S. Air Force assistant secretary for energy, installations, and the environment, saying in September 2023, “Geothermal sources strengthen our energy grids and give us the ability to isolate threats before they impact our operations. This type of capability will translate into victory in a high-end fight.”

Alaska’s geographic importance coincides with emerging U.S. technical excellence. Geothermal power, like high tech and aerospace, is a sector of American competitive advantage that can be leveraged as part of a broader energy abundance agenda in a region that is leading global energy transitions. In the geothermal space, firms such as Eavor, Fervo Energy, GreenFire Energy, Sage Geosystems, Teverra, and Zanskar Geothermal and Minerals are developing cutting edge approaches that leverage the massive subsurface expertise and experience U.S. companies have built through drilling and fracking tens of thousands of shale oil and gas wells over the past 20 years.

The new generation of enhanced geothermal wells use cutting-edge oil and gas techniques including horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and distributed fiber optic sensing to monitor reservoir conditions. They also dramatically expand the number of locations suitable for geothermal power development and, because well pairs can be added modularly, help manage project developers’ financial risk.

U.S. firms enjoy unique competitive advantages here, ones that if harnessed through smart policy can help advance energy security interests on our own soil in Alaska and the Aleutians, as well as in Japan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan.

Geothermal energy offers the 24/7/365 baseload electricity supplies that countries need for building out and operating competitive industrial bases. Because it can continually run regardless of weather or sunlight, every megawatt of geothermal power that comes online can displace coal, gas, or oil-based dispatchable generation. Climate benefits follow. Furthermore, unlike hydropower and many other thermal power plant types, geothermal is substantially decoupled from drought risk. It is also potentially capable of load-following to fill gaps in wind and solar generation, a capability that Sage Geosystems has recently demonstrated at megawatt-scale.

Geothermal generation’s engagement of physical heat also opens possibilities for supporting food cultivation in greenhouses and distillation of seawater. Where warranted by remoteness (Aleutian Islands) or by strategic circumstances (Taiwan), geothermal power can also potentially support green hydrogen production and liquid fuel synthesis.

Geothermal power also brings security benefits. Policymakers are recognizing in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that during industrial warfare, energy assets can and will be targeted. Fossil fuel generation facilities on islands are the most vulnerable because an adversary can trigger blackouts through interdicting seaborne fuel imports and does not even need to strike on land to create potentially strategic effects. This is true for vital U.S. territories, including the Aleutian islands of Unalaska and Adak; Shemya Island; Guam; and Hawaii.

For Taiwan, which faces the real risk of a blockade by China, each gigawatt of geothermal power brought online could, potentially displace about 1.25 million tons per year of liquified natural gas imports, or roughly 6 percent of the island’s total import volume in 2023. That estimate assumes that the geothermal facilities run at a 90 percent utilization rate and that the LNG would have been used to generate electricity in modern combined cycle power plants with a 50 percent thermal efficiency.

Geothermal projects could be sized to power all, or at least a major part, of some of these key islands’ electricity needs in way that helps resist potential blockades. Geothermal also has the advantage of being less politically controversial than nuclear power and, unlike contemporary nuclear generators, can be deployed in increments more modularly sized to the local market.

Accelerated geothermal energy developments in the Indo-Pacific, perhaps backed by the U.S. International Development Finance Corp. or Office of Strategic Capital as part of a low-carbon energy abundance package, would also offer a template for U.S. firms to play leading roles in Latin America and East Africa, two other priority regions that are—pun fully intended��geothermal power hotspots. The potential global addressable market in key regions of interest encompasses tens of gigawatts of generation capacity at the outset—a major commercial and strategic opportunity. If the first advanced geothermal projects pan out commercially, the market space would likely expand substantially.

Present energy security concerns, geopolitical conditions, and the apparent readiness of new geothermal approaches suggest the timing is propitious for a test case that puts U.S. policy muscle behind emerging domestic geothermal technological excellence. Alaska and the Aleutian Islands, in particular, offer an excellent starting point.

All modern energy systems need baseload power—resources that deliver when it is dark, subzero, stormy, etc. In the highly volcanic Aleutians’ case, this would ideally be geothermal power. The idea of geothermal in the Aleutians is not new; in the 1970s, the Navy studied using geothermal power to replace about half of Adak’s requirements which, at the time, totaled nearly 9 million gallons of imported JP-5 jet fuel per year The geological potential is real, with temperature gradients of 80 degrees Celsius per kilometer of depth on the north end of Adak Island that exceed those found in Utah where Fervo is now developing a utility-scale enhanced geothermal project with a 400 MW capacity.

The backdrop features both strategic and commercial drivers. Enter Dutch Harbor, the main settlement on Unalaska and the United States’ largest fisheries port by volume. Unalaska offers a combination of major volcanism and corresponding geothermal power potential, strategic position, and local desire to find energy sources better than expensive and polluting diesel power generation. Unalaska’s annual diesel fuel needs for power generation can run as high as 3.6 million gallons per year, which at a diesel cost of $4 a gallon means more than $14 million annually. In addition to high costs, diesel generators release substantial air emissions and bring with them the risk of fuel spills, which threaten sensitive local ecosystems and are challenging to remediate in the harsh Aleutian environment.

The area has long been recognized as a potential geothermal hotspot, with the Ounalashka Corp. saying that 11 previous development attempts having failed for various reasons to bring a project to fruition. In the latest incarnation, Ounalashka Corp. has partnered with Chena Power to try to commercially develop a 30 MW geothermal power project utilizing subsurface hydrothermal resources associated with the Makushin Volcano on Unalaska Island. Adding next-generation projects on Unalaska and its neighbor Akutan could allow the area to potentially become a major geothermal hub, creating sufficient energy abundance to go beyond just displacing local diesel generation.

The commercial case includes avoidance of steep fuel costs, cost-effective and ecologically-friendlier support for additional seafood processing plant expansions, desalination of seawater, local cultivation of fresh vegetables in greenhouses, and potentially, even producing liquid fuels based on green hydrogen. Current geothermal power development attempts on Unalaska now have a higher probability for success because the stakes in local energy security in the Aleutians, and more broadly for the United States and its allies and partners around the Pacific Rim, are higher than they have been for decades.

The Aleutian Arc offers incredibly strategic real estate—with at least three militarily relevant operational airfields on Unalaska, Adak, and Shemya that are within seven flight hours of all key flashpoints in East Asia. Nome, which sits north of the islands, is now in the early stages of a $600 million upgrade to create a deepwater port capable of handling any U.S. Navy vessel other than aircraft carriers. And to the south, the U.S. Coast Guard recently announced that it will homeport its new Arctic icebreaker in Juneau, a vessel that will steam near or between various Aleutian Islands each time it heads into the high north. Russia and China have in their own way highlighted the Aleutians’ importance with periodic joint warship cruises and recently, a flight into the region by Chinese and Russian bomber aircraft.

There is also potential for re-opening the Navy base on Adak that was closed in 1997 and for expanding facilities in Shemya, which already hosts key early warning radars. Other islands in the chain—including Attu and Kiska (which Japan seized in 1942), Amchitka, Atka, and Tanaga—hosted facilities in World War II; in Attu’s case, as recently as 2010, when Casco Cove Coast Guard Station closed. These footprints could be re-provisioned. The islands also offer a barrier to keep Chinese submarines from accessing the Bering Sea (just like the NATO focus on the Greenland-Iceland-U.K. Gap in the Cold War), and in the future, could offer bases for long range land-based strike systems. All these concepts require abundant energy to achieve the resilience needed to weather the unfolding United States-China cold war and, if necessary, actual kinetic conflict.

Aleutian geothermal resources, through both the legacy project at Makushin Volcano and future projects using next generation approaches, would turn the Dutch Harbor area into an Aleutian energy hub. If it succeeds, similar approaches can likely be used further west at Adak and Shemya. Successful Aleutian geothermal projects can also provide templates usable around the Indo-Pacific (especially in Taiwan, Japan, and Indonesia) and potentially in other regions of interest with rich geothermal resources, such as Central America and East Africa.

The intense competition unfolding in the region means time is of the essence. A U.S. Energy Department analysis notes that to achieve commercial scale in the next generation geothermal space, early-stage developments will likely require “unique developer classes with strategic motivations” who “will likely fund projects entirely with equity.”

The Energy Department estimates that at present, a 30 MW next-generation geothermal project of the type needed in an Aleutian context likely costs about $450 million to complete all surface and subsurface work. Such a project could be built with a combination of a grant and a low-interest federal loan, on the condition that development emphasizes next generation geothermal technologies of U.S. origin. Abundant geothermal energy could revolutionize Aleutian energy supplies and set the stage for a broader geoeconomic push to scale new geothermal opportunities in Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and elsewhere across the Indo-Pacific to the benefit of partner and U.S. interests alike.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

First observation of ultra-rare particle decay could uncover new physics

Scientists at CERN have discovered an ultra-rare particle decay process, opening a new path to find physics beyond our understanding of how the building blocks of matter interact.

The NA62 collaboration presented at a CERN EP seminar the first experimental observation of the ultra-rare decay of the charged kaon into a charged pion and a neutrino-antineutrino pair (K+ → π+νṽ).

This is an ultra-rare occurrence—the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics, which explains how particles interact, predicts that less than one in 10 billion kaons will decay in this way. The NA62 experiment has been designed and constructed specifically to measure this kaon decay.

Cristina Lazzeroni, Professor in Particle Physics at the University of Birmingham, said, "With this measurement, K+ → π+νṽ becomes the rarest decay established at discovery level—the famous 5 sigma. This difficult analysis is the result of excellent teamwork, and I am extremely proud of this new result."

Kaons are produced by a high-intensity proton beam provided by the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS), colliding with a stationary target. This creates a beam of secondary particles with almost a billion particles per second flying into the NA62 detector, about 6% of which are charged kaons. The detector identifies and measures precisely each kaon and its decay products, except neutrinos which show up as missing energy.

Professor Giuseppe Ruggiero, from the University of Florence, added, "This is the culmination of a long project started more than a decade ago. Looking for effects in nature that have probabilities to happen of the order of 10-11 is fascinating and challenging. After rigorous and painstaking work, we have got a stunning reward to our effort and delivered a long-awaited result."

The new result is based on the combination of data taken by the NA62 experiment in 2021–22 and a previously published result based on the 2016–18 dataset. The 2021–22 dataset was collected following a suite of upgrades to the NA62 setup, allowing operation at 30% higher beam intensity with several new and improved detectors.

The hardware upgrades combined with refined analysis techniques allowed collection of signal candidates at a 50% higher rate than before, while adding new tools to suppress backgrounds.

A group of scientists from the University of Birmingham, currently led by Professor Evgueni Goudzovski, joined the NA62 experiment at the design phase in 2007—playing a central role in the collaboration.

Professor Goudzovski commented, "Attracting top talent and offering positions of responsibility to early-career researchers has always been the priority for the group. We are proud that both the current NA62 physics coordinator and the current convener of the K+ → π+νṽ measurement are former Birmingham Ph.D. students. It is a privilege to work in and lead such an energetic and constructive team."

The research team is studying the K+ → π+νṽ decay because it is very sensitive to new physics beyond the SM description. This makes the decay one of the most interesting processes to search for evidence of new physics.

The fraction of kaons that decay into a pion and two neutrinos is measured to be about 13 in 100 billion. This matches SM predictions but is about 50% higher.

This could be due to new particles that increase the likelihood of this decay, but more data is needed to confirm this idea. The NA62 experiment is currently collecting data and scientists hope to confirm or rule out the presence of new physics in this decay within the next few years.

[utilitycaster]



You know about radiation, would you eat anything that FCG baked in his new oven?

Short answer: yes.

Long answer: so the thing is, with the arcane, is that I treat it as radioactivity when it's funny and as magic when that's funnier. Anyway though even if the heat in FCG's chassis was generated by the equivalent (presumably sufficiently shielded, given that Bells Hells have not shown any signs of acute radiation poisoning*) radioactive source, the decay heat could be transferred to the oven compartment without contaminating it. It is, effectively, an easy bake oven except instead of a strong lightbulb, it is the radioactive source (fully enclosed).

If you think about it: if you get an x-ray, you are not yourself radioactive at any point. You become briefly exposed to radioactivity, but at quite literally the speed of light, it leaves your body. (The mechanism by which radiation causes cancer is that the radioactive particles passing through from an x-ray you can break strands of DNA, which in turn can give rise to mutations if they are not properly repaired by your body's normal repair mechanisms). There are medical treatments that do cause you to be radioactive (eg: I-131 pills for thyroid conditions; nuclear medicine imaging; brachytherapy implants for in-situ cancer treatments) but those require actively introducing a radioactive source into your body rather than passing through externally. So anyway FCG's oven, if powered by radioactivity, should not make the food radioactive itself. If you've ever put snacks into luggage carry-on and passed it through an airport scanner? You've eaten food that had x-rays pass through it. Also spices sometimes get irradiated in order to kill bacteria or microorganisms.

*setting aside the D&D heal-all-damage mechanisms, which really fuck with how radiobiology would work. Also as an aside we can probably(?) assume that FCG is NOT radioactive at all because if he were, Vitro Isham is going to die in like 24 hours of the neurological form of acute radiation sickness, given the description of the arcane accumulator and its similarities to the famous Demon Core of the Manhattan Project. Funnily enough, Isham reminded me most of my radiobiology prof.

[loki-who-remains]

Well, Victor Timely sure knows how to draw attention and eventually make some money. And make me write another post on a partially scientific topic. I’m not an expert tho!

On the right side of the stage there's a sign, 'Electrifying achievement to harness the power of time'

And then he explains what the Loom does. 'My temporal loom inverts the temporal decay of the electricity flowing through it, lowering its entropy and gathering it into fine threads of power. Which it then weaves into elegant ropes of voltage. A chaos of particles is transformed into order.'

(I'm gonna assume he quotes OB's guidebook and not just wings it all randomly, because at least a part of what he says made sense to me)

In short, he says that the Loom can arrange matter into an ordered state. And that it not only uses electricity but also reproduces it in a form of threads and ropes. That would explain how the TVA operates outside of uh time and why it has power surges in s2e1. But it still leaves the question from where comes the initial energy to kick start the loom.

I believe that the temporal decay is synonimous to the increasing entropy. Entropy is a measure of how many ways there are possible to rearrange the same amount of matter without changing its 'shape'. Simply put, objects with low entropy can't be rearranged without being broken/reassembled. And those with high entropy can be rearranged without changing its form or shape, so to speak. Prof. Brian Cox compares the former with a sand castle and the latter with a pile of sand 👌 Another important point is that entropy inevitably increases over time: order becomes disorder. BUT. If we go back in time — and not like in Doctor who but like in Tenet — then we would observe entropy again, increasing relative to us (and not decreasing if we observe it from the present into the past).

Now, I think that raw time, as OB named it, is energy with high entropy and a physical timeline is rearranged energy with low entropy. When a timeline branches, entropy increases again. Also, temporal radiation means a form of energy that travels from a source through space.

(Side note. My initial guess was: to isolate a timeline HWR would need to have something threaded. Which would mean that the Loom came first. But when the timeline branches it creates more input INTO the Loom. And what’s more, in the end of s1 the Sacred timeline branches into a web which resembles the raw time. Just like Timely said, ‘the energy of the past, present and future flows all around us.’ And HWR managed to harness it to sustain his big project. So, raw time/sacred/other timelines exist as they are, and the Loom is just a tool to operate the former)

(Side note 2. The Sacred timeline doesn’t consist of just one universe. It’s weaved from multiple but strictly selected multiversal timelines. Otherwise we’d see minutemen in previous movies)

I can accept temporal auras which can help track and pull someone across space-time. Or temporal radiation, which is itself a fun concept. But what puzzles me the most is time being a form of matter. In our reality, at least according to the current physics, it’s a dimension. I can’t wrap my head around it. Even in a fictional way, i can’t explain it to myself. Because I experience time the same way people do in the show. I think here Timely either simplifies so to make people understand and buy his Loom or he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

And that’s why, until proven otherwise or explained by OB, I think that the Loom is first of all just a big power generator. The timelines are being pruned manually by time cops setting time bombs and arresting variants. Resetting a timeline means removing entropy that was created by a variant’s actions. The Loom generates energy for the TVA, people working there and their equipment. And maybe it charges Kang’s time chair.

The multiverse doesn’t need the Loom to function. Time flows on its own, entropy increases all the time, it’s far more inevitable than Thanos. Loom is a tool, it can be removed, repaired or upscaled. The TVA as organisation and people and city (?) all need it but, most of all, the person behind it.

[soulstar177]

More people should know about Chien-Shiung Wu, a famous physicist known for her work in nuclear and particle physics. She is soooo cool.

Her accomplishments include but are not limited to her work on the Manhattan Project, the Wu experiment, and work on beta decay. The Wu experiment was designed and named after her and showed conservation of parity is violated by weak interaction (I don’t know what this means I am not a physicist). Due to the impact of this experiment, her colleagues who had approached Wu due to her work in beta decay spectroscopy and proposed investigating parity for weak interactions won the Nobel prize; during their acceptance speech they thanked Wu and afterwards tried to nominate her for a future Nobel prize. In fact, she was nominated for the Nobel prize at least 7 times before 1966 (they stopped letting ppl know who had been nominated at this point).

Anyway everyone should go look up more stuff on her she is so cool.

[saturnine-saturneight]

Out of context tag

Tagged by @thatfunkylilfey [here], thank you!

rules: share an out of context snippet from a wip

From chapter 2 "Disorientation" of Particle Decay:

"Did you just fucking hit yourself?" she gasped behind them, protesting even as mirror-Johannes staggered backwards. There had been no metal that met Johannes' fist, no splinters of glass that they had half expected, though another part of them, a bent part, said that no, of course there wouldn't be a mirror, of course that wasn't how it worked.

Tagging:

@marlowethelibrarian @tragedycoded @fairytaleinagem @writingrosesonneptune @gioiaalbanoart

@chauceryfairytales @noblebs @wyked-ao3

Though of course no pressure!

[shreyareddz07]

Assignment 2 : Draft 2

Title: The Last Compass

It’s the year 2104, and the world is a barren wasteland of steel, dust, and forgotten ruins. The mega-city of Mugrond, once a towering hub of civilization, has become a shattered skeleton. The skies above are a permanent twilight, choked with ash and pollution, casting the crumbling buildings in a sickly orange hue. The ground beneath is a cracked, parched surface littered with the remnants of wars fought long ago, while rusting remnants of vehicles lie like broken bones in the streets.

Lina, just 12 years old, leads a small group of survivors known as the Wanderers. In this brutal world, there are no parents, no government—just kids, forced to battle each day for food, water, and the faintest glimmer of safety. The wind howls through the skeletal remains of skyscrapers, and the walls of once-bustling markets are now canvases of decay, streaked with rust and charred by past fires.

Lina clutches an old compass, though this compass isn’t the kind her great-grandfather might have used. This is an advanced relic of lost technology—a sleek, transparent sphere suspended in a fluid that shimmers with faint holographic lights. The needle inside is a floating particle, glowing softly, projecting directions onto Lina’s palm like a ghostly map. It doesn’t point north—it points to Sanctus Peak, a mythical place beyond the chaos, where it’s said the war never touched, and life still thrives. For Lina and her group, the compass isn’t just a tool; it’s their last hope.

The Wanderers use old hoverboards they scavenged, outdated but still functional. The boards glide silently over the cracked roads, weaving through the debris with soft hums, their neon lights flickering dimly. They are always on the move, drifting through Mugrond’s ruins like shadows. The sky shifts between ominous shades of purple and grey, and the air is heavy with the smell of burning metal and dust.

But peace is hard to find in Mugrond. The Steelborn, a ruthless group of child soldiers, patrol the streets. These aren’t just kids—they are mechanical hybrids, created by rogue AI systems, their bodies grafted with metal limbs and weapons. Their eyes glow a cold blue, their voices flat and robotic. They move with precision, their mechanical joints clanking against the rusted roads. The Steelborn don’t fight to survive; they fight to conquer. They seek out others like Lina’s group, forcing them to join or die.

Each day is a struggle to stay hidden. The Wanderers creep through the shadows of towering skyscraper remains, their faces lit by the eerie glow of the compass. Once-glass windows, now shattered and covered in moss, flicker in the fading light. The streets echo with distant mechanical footsteps—every corner they turn is another danger. The buildings around them seem to change color with the weather; when the skies dim, the concrete takes on a deep red hue, reflecting the bloodshed that has scarred the city.

One night, while hiding in an old subway station, the cold blue lights of the Steelborn reflect on the tunnel walls. Lina’s heart sinks. The heavy clank of metal footsteps echoes through the underground tunnels, growing louder. They’ve been found.

Fear sweeps through the group like a cold wind. “We have to run!” one of the Wanderers whispers urgently. But they’re trapped. The subway tunnel, lined with rusting pipes and flickering broken lights, stretches ahead, but there’s nowhere left to go. The group grabs whatever they can—a jagged piece of metal, an old pipe, anything to defend themselves. The air is thick with panic, and Lina can feel her hands trembling around the compass.

The Steelborn charge into the station, their robotic limbs slashing through the air with precision. The battle is short and brutal. Lina watches in horror as her friends struggle to hold back the Steelborn’s mechanical strength. One by one, they fall, and Lina feels the weight of failure crushing her chest.

Just when it seems like all hope is lost, the compass in Lina’s hand begins to glow more brightly than ever. The floating particle inside pulses with a strange energy, casting a radiant blue light on the walls of the subway. The needle spins rapidly before pointing down, towards the ground. Lina’s eyes widen in shock. “This way!” she shouts, her voice cutting through the chaos.

They scramble down a side tunnel as the Steelborn close in. The hoverboards spark to life, propelling the group deeper into the subway, their neon trails cutting through the darkness like a comet’s tail. The tunnel winds and twists in eerie silence until, at last, they arrive at a massive, sealed door—its surface smooth and metallic, untouched by time.

Lina jams the compass into a glowing slot on the door. The compass hums, synchronizing with the technology embedded in the door, and with a slow hiss, it slides open. They rush inside just as the Steelborn reach the entrance, the door slamming shut in their faces with a thunderous clang.

Inside, the Wanderers find a hidden bunker, completely intact. The bunker is a relic from a long-forgotten era, its walls gleaming in pristine white. Shelves are lined with food, purified water, and technology that seems alien in its sleek design. Holographic maps flicker in the air, showing forgotten routes through Mugrond. It’s not the sanctuary they dreamed of, but it’s enough to keep them alive for now.

As the group collapses in exhaustion, Lina looks at the glowing compass in her hand. The soft light flickers faintly but remains steady. It had saved them once again. But Lina knows this is just the beginning. The war outside still rages, and the Steelborn won’t stop their hunt.

For now, they have a lifeline. And with this futuristic compass, Lina and her group still have a chance—not just to survive, but to find the sanctuary they’ve longed for. She grips the compass tighter, feeling its pulse of energy, and makes a silent vow. They’ll keep moving, keep fighting—for a future where the children of Mugrond can finally be free from this endless war.

[vector-art-bundles]

Schrödinger’s Cat Paradox: Exploring Quantum Theory Through Artistic Design

The world of quantum mechanics is as fascinating as it is complex, and one of the most iconic thought experiments that perfectly encapsulates the strange nature of this field is Schrödinger’s Cat paradox. First introduced by physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, the experiment poses a mind-bending question: can a cat be both alive and dead at the same time?

Schrödinger’s paradox involves a hypothetical scenario where a cat is placed in a sealed box with a radioactive atom, a Geiger counter, and a vial of poison. The atom’s decay is random and, until observed, the cat exists in a state of superposition – both alive and dead. Only when the box is opened does the observer determine the cat's fate. This paradox highlights the peculiarities of quantum theory, where particles can exist in multiple states simultaneously until measured.

The Intersection of Science and Art: Quantum Schrödinger Cat Paradox Vector Design

While Schrödinger’s paradox continues to intrigue physicists and science enthusiasts, its impact has transcended the world of academia. The Quantum Schrödinger Cat Paradox Vector Art Pack offers a creative and visually engaging way to bring this quantum mystery into your personal or professional projects.

Designed with precision and creativity, this vector pack is a seamless blend of scientific complexity and modern graphic design. Ideal for those with an interest in both art and quantum theory, it features a visual interpretation of the Schrödinger Cat paradox in a highly customizable format. Available in multiple file types including SVG, AI, EPS, PNG, and PDF, this pack is perfect for both digital and print projects.

A Versatile Design for Multiple Applications

The Schrödinger Cat Paradox Quantum Concept Vector Art Pack is not just for science buffs. Its sleek and modern design makes it perfect for a range of creative uses. Here are just a few ways this design can elevate your work:

Apparel: Create unique t-shirts, hoodies, and caps that capture the enigmatic beauty of quantum theory.

Merchandise: Print the design on mugs, stickers, posters, or even decals for quantum-inspired products.

Educational Use: Add a scientific edge to classrooms, labs, or public spaces by designing murals, banners, or signage that showcase the paradox in an eye-catching way.

Personal Projects: Whether it’s a custom tattoo or artistic décor, this design is versatile enough to make your personal creations stand out.

Why Choose This Schrödinger Cat Vector Pack?

What sets this vector design apart is not only its nod to quantum mechanics but also the technical quality of the graphics. The files are fully scalable, meaning they maintain high resolution regardless of size, making them ideal for everything from small stickers to large-scale posters. Moreover, the ability to edit colors and other design elements offers the flexibility to match any theme or project style.

Key Features:

Quantum-Themed Design: A unique blend of art and quantum theory

Multiple Formats: SVG, AI, EPS, PNG, and PDF for use across platforms

Customizable: Easily modify size, color, and design elements to fit your needs

High-Resolution Output: Ensures quality for both digital and print uses

Wide Range of Applications: Perfect for apparel, merchandise, educational material, and more

Bridging the Gap Between Science and Creativity

The Quantum Schrödinger Cat Paradox Vector Design Pack demonstrates how complex scientific concepts like quantum superposition can be transformed into a tool for creativity. Whether you’re a physicist looking to add a touch of fun to your presentations, or an artist eager to explore scientific themes, this design pack offers a fresh and innovative way to bridge the gap between science and art.

This vector pack is more than just a design; it’s a conversation starter. With the rise in popularity of science-themed art and products, integrating the Schrödinger Cat paradox into your work can make your projects stand out in a competitive market. Quantum mechanics may be abstract, but through this creative interpretation, it becomes something tangible, relatable, and visually striking.

Conclusion: A Quantum Leap for Your Designs

The Quantum Schrödinger Cat Paradox Vector Art Pack provides a unique opportunity to explore quantum theory through the lens of artistic design. Whether you’re creating educational materials, launching a new product line, or simply looking for a design that sparks curiosity, this vector pack is your go-to solution. With its high-quality, customizable features and wide range of applications, it’s perfect for anyone seeking to blend the realms of science and creativity.

Unlock the potential of quantum-inspired design and bring Schrödinger’s paradox into your next project.

[luanviko]

A Simple SiPM Pulse Simulator

This little project came out during a sunday scaries, in which I channeled the antecipation for the coming week into improving my Object Oriented Programming abilities. I am very happy by how organized and clean the code came out! 

One of the devices I used in my particle detectors is a Silicon Photo-Multiplier, or SiPM, for short. SiPMs are used to count the number of photons that reach it from any source of your detector.

SiPMs are a matrix of p-n junctions, which, in turn, have their depletion layer destroyed by the photon. This provokes a surge in the current generated by the SiPM. This is seen as pulse on the screen of the oscilloscope, and certain SiPM may produce pulses with very sharp rise time.

It is possible to count the number of photons reaching the SiPM by how large the current is; more photons means more p-n junctions being disrupted. 

After the sudden current spike, a quenching resistor gets in action and stops the current coming out of the p-n junction. This is seen on the oscilloscope as an exponential decay, the tail of the pulse.

This small library simulates a SiPM pulse, with an ideal rise time (1-sample long) and an ideal tail (exponential decay). It is superposed on a baseline of random numbers generated by numpy, to simulate electronic noise.

[koerich]

A Simple SiPM Pulse Generator

This little project came out during a sunday scaries, in which I channeled the antecipation for the coming week into improving my Object Oriented Programming abilities. I am very happy by how organized and clean the code came out! 

One of the devices I used in my particle detectors is a Silicon Photo-Multiplier, or SiPM, for short. SiPMs are used to count the number of photons that reach it from any source of your detector.

SiPMs are a matrix of p-n junctions, which, in turn, have their depletion layer destroyed by the photon. This provokes a surge in the current generated by the SiPM. This is seen as pulse on the screen of the oscilloscope, and certain SiPM may produce pulses with very sharp rise time.

It is possible to count the number of photons reaching the SiPM by how large the current is; more photons means more p-n junctions being disrupted. 

After the sudden current spike, a quenching resistor gets in action and stops the current coming out of the p-n junction. This is seen on the oscilloscope as an exponential decay, the tail of the pulse.

This small library simulates a SiPM pulse, with an ideal rise time (1-sample long) and an ideal tail (exponential decay). It is superposed on a baseline of random numbers generated by numpy, to simulate electronic noise.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Still no signs of dark matter particles

In the 1930s, Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky observed that the velocities of galaxies in the Coma Cluster were too high to be maintained solely by the gravitational pull of luminous matter. He proposed the existence of some non-luminous matter within the galaxy cluster, which he called dark matter. This discovery marked the beginning of humanity's understanding and study of dark matter.

Today, the most precise measurements of dark matter in the universe come from observations of the cosmic microwave background. The latest results from the Planck satellite indicate that about 5% of the mass in our universe comes from visible matter (mainly baryonic matter), approximately 27% comes from dark matter, and the rest from dark energy.

Despite extensive astronomical observations confirming the existence of dark matter, we have limited knowledge about the properties of dark matter particles. From a microscopic perspective, the Standard Model of particle physics, established in the mid-20th century, has been hugely successful and confirmed by numerous experiments. However, the Standard Model cannot explain the existence of dark matter in the universe, indicating the need for new physics beyond the Standard Model to account for dark matter candidate particles, and the urgent need to find experimental evidence of these candidates.

Consequently, dark matter research is not only a hot topic in astronomy but also at the forefront of particle physics research. Searching for dark matter particles in colliders is one of the three major experimental approaches to detect the interaction between dark matter and regular matter, complementing other types of dark matter detection experiments such as underground direct detection experiments and space-based indirect detection experiments.

Recently, the ATLAS collaboration searched for dark matter using the 139 fb-1 of proton-proton collision data accumulated during LHC's Run 2, within the 2HDM+a dark matter theoretical framework. The search utilized a variety of dark matter production processes and experimental signatures, including some not considered in traditional dark matter models. To further enhance the sensitivity of the dark matter search, this work statistically combined the three most sensitive experimental signatures: the process involving a Z boson decaying into leptons with large missing transverse momentum, the process involving a Higgs boson decaying into bottom quarks with large missing transverse momentum, and the process involving a charged Higgs boson with top and bottom quark final states.

This is the first time ATLAS has conducted a combined statistical analysis of final states including dark matter particles and intermediate states decaying directly into Standard Model particles. This innovation has significantly enhanced the constraint on the model parameter space and the sensitivity to new physics.

"This work is one of the largest projects in the search for new physics at the LHC, involving nearly 20 different analysis channels. The complementary nature of different analysis channels to constrain the parameter space of new physics highlights the unique advantages of collider experiments," said Zirui Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan.

This work has provided strong experimental constraints on multiple new benchmark parameter models within the 2HDM+a theoretical framework, including some parameter spaces never explored by previous experiments. This represents the most comprehensive experimental result from the ATLAS collaboration for the 2HDM+a dark matter model.

Lailin Xu, a professor at the University of Science and Technology of China stated, "2HDM+a is one of the mainstream new physics theoretical frameworks for dark matter in the world today. It has significant advantages in predicting dark matter phenomena and compatibility with current experimental constraints, predicting a rich variety of dark matter production processes in LHC experiments. This work systematically carried out multi-process searches and combined statistical analysis based on the 2HDM+a model framework, providing results that exclude a large portion of the possible parameter space for dark matter, offering important guidance for future dark matter searches."

Vu Ngoc Khanh, a postdoctoral researcher at Tsung-Dao Lee institute, stated: “Although we have not yet found dark matter particles at the LHC, compared to before the LHC’s operation, we have put stringent constraints on the parameter space where dark matter might exist, including the mass of the dark matter particles and their interaction strengths with other particles, further narrowing the search scope.” Tsung Dao Lee Fellow Li Shu, added: “So far, the data collected by the LHC only accounts for about 7% of the total data the experiment will record. The data that the LHC will generate over the next 20 years presents a tremendous opportunity to discover dark matter. Our past experiences have shown us that dark matter might be different from what we initially thought, which motivates us to use more innovative experimental methods and techniques in our search.”

ATLAS is one of the four large experiments at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The ATLAS experiment is a multipurpose particle detector with a forward–backward symmetric cylindrical geometry and nearly 4π coverage in solid angle. It consists of an inner tracking detector surrounded by a thin superconducting solenoid, high-granularity sampling electromagnetic and hadronic calorimeters, and a muon spectrometer with three superconducting air-core toroidal magnets. The ATLAS Collaboration consists of more than 5900 members from 253 institutes in 42 countries on 6 continents, including physicists, engineers, students, and technical staff.

[luan-koerich-phd]

A Simple Simulator of SiPM Pulses

This little project came out during a sunday scaries, in which I channeled the antecipation for the coming week into improving my Object Oriented Programming abilities. I am very happy by how organized and clean the code came out!

One of the devices I used in my particle detectors is a Silicon Photo-Multiplier, or SiPM, for short. SiPMs are used to count the number of photons that reach it from any source of your detector.

SiPMs are a matrix of p-n junctions, which, in turn, have their depletion layer destroyed by the photon. This provokes a surge in the current generated by the SiPM. This is seen as pulse on the screen of the oscilloscope, and certain SiPM may produce pulses with very sharp rise time.

It is possible to count the number of photons reaching the SiPM by how large the current is; more photons means more p-n junctions being disrupted.

After the sudden current spike, a quenching resistor gets in action and stops the current coming out of the p-n junction. This is seen on the oscilloscope as an exponential decay, the tail of the pulse.

This small library simulates a SiPM pulse, with an ideal rise time (1-sample long) and an ideal tail (exponential decay). It is superposed on a baseline of random numbers generated by numpy, to simulate electronic noise.