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Trouble with physics: Seven experiments to change it all


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Trouble with physics: Seven experiments to change it all

 

With theory stalled, the next breakthrough in physics is likely to come from an experiment. We introduce seven potential game-changers

With theory at an impasse, the next breakthrough in physics is likely to come from an experiment. We introduce seven potential game-changers, starting with the behemoth that's soon to get bigger

 

The Higgs boson is (probably) in the bag, but the Large Hadron Collider has plenty more to give. Starting late in 2014, the plan is to double the energy of the proton collisions at CERN's particle smasher.

 

That should be enough to produce particles predicted by next-generation theories such as supersymmetry. But it is a multibillion-dollar gamble. If it does not pay off, it is back to scrabbling around in cosmic rays or measuring tiny atomic effects to find answers.

 

Richard Webb

 

The Planck probe

 

Radiation left over from the big bang contains vital clues about the early universe. The most detailed maps of it are coming from the European Space Agency's Planck satellite, launched in 2009. It can capture the radiation precisely enough to measure cosmological quantities without making many theoretical assumptions, detect the rippling of gravitational waves and test various models of the inflation thought to have occurred during the big bang. It will even let us explore ideas outside of our standard cosmology, such as parallel worlds.

 

Valerie Jamieson

 

Advanced LIGO

 

General relativity predicts that ripples in space-time should constantly be passing through Earth. From 2014 Advanced LIGO, an upgrade of an existing gravitational-wave detector in the US (pictured), will use laser rulers several kilometres long to spy spatial disturbances equivalent to Earth moving one-tenth of an atomic diameter closer to the sun.

 

If it sees something, it will be the crowning triumph of Einstein's relativity. If it doesn't, it is back to the drawing board with our theories of gravity.

 

Richard Webb

 

LISA Pathfinder

 

The European Space Agency's LISA Pathfinder mission will primarily test gravitational-wave detectors, but from next year it could also confirm whether gravity is all general relativity says it is. By flying through the saddle point where the Earth and the sun's gravity cancel out, the craft might probe whether Einstein's theory still holds when gravitational accelerations are incredibly small. If it does, these gravitational lacunae will be the last resting place of other occasionally fashionable theories, such as Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND).

 

Stuart Clark

 

Dark matter searches

 

Theory points to dark matter being made of so-far-unseen weakly interacting massive particles, known as WIMPs. Over a dozen exquisitely sensitive experiments have been built specifically to catch these slippery customers. Three DAMA/LIBRA (pictured), CoGeNT and CRESST have seen things that look suspiciously like them. Others have ruled out the same particles entirely. The trouble is we know too little about what we are looking for. We need more data and additional experiments to understand the experiments.

 

Valerie Jamieson

 

Neutrino factories

 

Neutrino experiments are a hit-and-miss affair. The properties of the ghostly particles are ill-defined, and they interact so rarely that vast floods of them are needed for us to spot anything. The solution could be nuSTORM, a proposed factory that will churn out precisely controlled beams of neutrinos or their antimatter counterparts, antineutrinos. That could at last pin down their nature and the number of varieties they come in and so settle whether any additional types of non-interacting sterile neutrinos exist.

 

Valerie Jamieson

 

Quantum theory in space

 

Experiments beaming photons over sometimes hundreds of kilometres have so far only confirmed quantum theory's outrageous predictions of weird correlations and entanglements between the particles.

 

Soon the ante will be upped with plans to beam quantum transmissions via satellite between continents. It's a first step to testing quantum theory in space over distances at which relativity's warping becomes significant and so seeing what happens when those two great and incompatible theories collide.

 

Richard Webb

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