Fermilab Not Dead Yet, Discovers Rare Single Top Quark

Several sources are reporting that in spite of LHC hype, Fermilab's Tevatron has produced another feat for scientific discovery. Currently the world's most powerful operating particle accelerator, the Tevatron has allowed researchers to observe a rare single Top Quark. "Previously, top quarks had only been observed when produced by the strong nuclear force. That interaction leads to the production of pairs of top quarks. The production of single top quarks, which involves the weak nuclear force and is harder to identify experimentally, has now been observed, almost 14 years to the day of the top quark discovery in 1995."

Comments

And

[Mozk]

This quark was not charmed by being photographed.

Re:And

[Amazing Quantum Man]

That sounds rather strange.

Re:And

[CaptainPatent]

This quark was not charmed by being photographed.

Strange.

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I mod this "up" or "down" ?

Re:And

[CaptainPatent]

Should I mod this "up" or "down" ?

If we measure, won't that change the outcome?

Re:And

[Kjella]

No, but the girl was. Ok, a badly drawn stick girl in a webcomic was anyway ;)

Re:And

[staryc]

Should I mod this "up" or "down" ?

If we measure, won't that change the outcome?

We should let it simultaneously exist as funny and not exist as funny.

Re:And

[CaptainPatent]

We should let it simultaneously exist as funny and not exist as funny.

Well that certainly puts a spin on things.

Re:And

[CaptainPatent]

Redundant!?

It was a quantum finish!

Re:And

[Samschnooks]

It will happen both ways. There'll be a whole Universe created when you mod one way, another for modding another, yet another for not modding, and still others where you don't ask this question and this one where you did ask. Multiverse. Of course I created a universe by posting this. There's another universe where I did not post and instead pleasured myself with some hairy milf porn.

Re:And

[CaptainPatent]

If it gets modded up, you can color me tickled pink.

not to gluon the point, but that seems like a rather strong interaction.

Re:And

[blueg3]

Interesting. What is the cost to the taxpayers of Fermilab? How much is being spent on developing nuclear fusion?

Cosmology is less applicable but rarely gets much federal funding. High-energy physics is enormously useful, but it takes quite a while for the application to appear.

Grant requests always give justification for experiments. Press releases, not always -- they expect you to do some minimum of research yourself.

Re:And

[interkin3tic]

It's going to be hard to top that one. And... uh... my bottom hurts.

(that last one was a stretch I know)

Re:And

[DrLudicrous]

High energy physics has a rich history of spinoff technologies. Ever had an MRI? The superconducting magnets used in an MRI machine come out of particle accelerators. Massive amounts of data analysis? Talk to a high energy physicist. And as final tongue-in-cheek example, have you used the Internet lately? Invented at CERN.

Re:And

[FiniteSum]

The minute you try to make scientific research into a commodity like this, you will kill all scientific research. Do you think 19th century physicists had iPhones in mind when they were creating rudimentary batteries and experimenting with electromagnetism? Do you think Maxwell only published his famous paper so he could enable the creation of hybrid cars? Could anyone have predicted digital computers? Hell, could the inventors of digital computers have predicted modern desktops?

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

And as final tongue-in-cheek example, have you used the Internet lately? Invented at CERN.

WWW, not Internet. Some of us were perfectly happy with our Gopher and FTP before the new-fangled web stuff came along.

Re:And

[MarkRose]

We should let it simultaneously exist as funny and not exist as funny.

That would be almost as spooky as pink ponies!

Re:And

[AJWM]

And as final tongue-in-cheek example, have you used the Internet lately? Invented at CERN.

I'm guessing by "tongue-in-cheek" you mean "totally wrong".

The Internet was not invented at CERN -- it was invented by DARPA back in 1969 -- the World Wide Web (more specifically, HTTP) was invented at CERN.

Re:And

[dpiven]

have you used the Internet lately? Invented at CERN.

World Wide Web (invented at CERN) != Internet (invented by Al Gore).

Re:And

[Idiomatick]

I think this whole interaction is weak. Anti-funny really, sorry to be so negative my mother was a muon.

Re:And

[jd]

I could tell you, but then I'd have to shoot Schrodinger's cat.

Re:And

[rubycodez]

And... uh... my bottom hurts.....a stretch I know

sounds like your charm and beauty led to a strange coupling

Re:And

[HeadlessNotAHorseman]

>>High energy physics has a rich history of spinoff technologies. Ever had an MRI?
>>The superconducting magnets used in an MRI machine come out of particle accelerators.

I can't count the number of times people have stolen the super-conducting magnets from my particle accelerator to make MRI machines. Right now I'm stuck with a backlog of stationary particles in a jar in my back shed. I tried accelerating them by putting them in the passenger seat and driving down the road really fast, but it just wasn't the same :-(

Re:And

[markov_chain]

I think there is a high probability this thread will collapse into a series of bad puns.

Re:And

[Plaid Phantom]

He posted first, but he was also closer to the black hole.

Re:And

[stox]

Just a few examples from Fermilab:

ACP/MAPS: One of the pioneers in the use of massively parallel computers in science. Built and designed at Fermilab, was once the top of the super computer list.

IBM Farms: Inspired IBM's SP1, which has then lead to the Blue Gene series of computers. The Farms, both IBM and SGI, at Fermilab also pioneered the use of computer farms. It may be where the term "farm" originated.

Fermilab was a very early adopter of Linux. Bob Young, one of the founders of RedHat, credits that adoption with the early success of Linux.

Re:And

[NulDevice]

Fermilab? The power bill is the expensive part. Last year they got their budget cut so much they had to get private funding or else they'd close.

I don't know the exact amount, but it's not a whole lot compared to a lot of other science programs.

Re:And

[StreetStealth]

Sorry, but I think this gag's 1x10^-25 seconds are up.

Re:And

[metlin]

Ha. Fourier was proud of being a pure mathematician. Today, his works are amongst the most applied in just about every digital processing system.

Re:And

[lorenlal]

Agreed. Moderators were distracted by the plethora of particular humor above, and didn't notice that this post that was marked "redundant" was posted WAY before most of the jokes above. At 7:43 this was a perfectly legit comment.

Please mods, correct this. This only encourages usage of the FRPoR (first reasonable post or reply) for all future moderation or karma gains. This was quite funny, and I am giving CaptainPatent a +1 in my mind.

Re:And

[edsyc]

Al Gore created both the internet and world wide web, you idiots!

Re:And

[rsandwick3]

tough to gauge where all these off-color remarks are coming from... maybe we're from different generations?

Re:And

[DrLudicrous]

true that, www. but you all knew what i meant.

Re:And

[DrLudicrous]

Well, if you are trying to accelerate them with the magnets, you are going to have a problem. That's like try to accelerate your car using just your steering wheel.

Re:And

[thunderclap]

Do I think 19th century physicists had iPhones in mind when they were creating rudimentary batteries and experimenting with electromagnetism? Yes, but in that sense. You forget most commercial innovation is because of a need. A need that is expressed by capitalist endeavor.

Re:And

[khallow]

I think you need to look at the original post again which refers instead to justification. Scientific research which is publicly funded should be treated no differently than any other endeavor that does so. So as I see it, there are several matters which need justification:

1. Is the research worthwhile? Contrary to your assertion above, I believe we can evaluate potential research. Several of the discoveries you mention had near future value. Fundamental physics research has long shown value, being connected to many of the most important advances the human race has ever made.
2. Can the research be done better by private industry? For example, virtually all desktop computer development was private. For a more scientific example, miniaturization of electronics, fiber optics, and similar IT-related technologies are mostly privately funded. Research particle accelerators don't yet have the near future application that usually drives private endeavors.
3. Is the money being spent in a responsible and effective manner?

If these reasonable justifications will "destroy" "scientific research", then by all means destroy whatever that is.

Re:And

[tbischel]

"have you used the Internet lately? Invented at CERN"

I didn't know Al Gore worked at CERN!

Re:And

[MarkRose]

Yep, it descretely walked the planck a while ago...

Re:And

[Plutonite]

I hope you collapse into a deathly state, or get entangled with a bus, or both.

Re:And

[Plutonite]

I know, right? Let's stop trying to understand universal truths that are important enough to transcend human beings and their planet and their entire existence, and instead go back to being lowly pointless animals. Where were you since antiquity, you savior you?

Tax payers have funded worse things than science. By your logic, most of pure mathematics should not be funded or encouraged either, in which case neither you nor JFK would have ever thought twice about the moon (that bright thing in the heavens), and your talk of nuclear physics would get you burnt at a stake. Knowledge is more important than breeding.

Re:And

[w0mprat]

The Internet was not invented at CERN -- it was invented by DARPA back in 1969

Not quite. DARPAnet was hardly 'Internet' as we know it, since the Internet is best defined as a collection of protocols and so much has changed since the DARPA days. For one example it used NCP to move data, TCP/IP and DNS were to follow in the 80's. BGP was standardised even later (1989). The internet as we know it was whole by the time the web was ready, but by then removed enough from what was happening with DARPAnet. Right now, we're yet to see true Internet 2.0 be ready (IPV6, DNSSEC whatever the hell else), but at some point all the old protocols will be redundant and you could say the internet has been replaced.

Particle physics is generating huge volumes of data. I remember hearing about physicists needing to move a 40 terabyte set of data internationally in 1996 -- in the end they had to do it by a literal container load of disks. Today worldwide research networks (Yes, Internet 2.0, cliche) can move this data over fibre in practical time frames. LHC will be producing mind boggling amounts.

It's this kind of bleeding edge usage of the internet that is driving infrastructure development forward. Dollars spent at Fermi lab and the like have nontrivial indirect benefits this way. I would argue that the pool of research money that drove universities to need to connect up internationally and spawn the Internet 1.0 has much more than been paid off in gains to the global economy.

That's the justification for keeping this research going even in a worldwide recession.

Re:And

[amchugh]

Single top quarks can't be charmed without becoming topless, and then they don't like to be photographed until you ply them with enough drinks that they collapse.

Re:And

[Burnhard]

The internet was invented by Al Gore, not at CERN, you dummy.

Re:And

[bigsquare]

I think they might have done - I'm sure it wasn't beyond their wit to have an imagination.

Re:And

[kohaku]

No, no, no! This is not a healthy line of thought! There is absolutely no way you can predict with certainty the future benefits of any scientific research. Even electricity was of uncertain value. The very point of public funding is for research whose benefits aren't obvious, but whose results are a benefit to science as a whole. You say that you believe it is possible to 'evaluate potential research'. How do you go about doing that? What are your criteria? Does research which has no practical application whatsoever but advances understanding of the whole get swept under the carpet?
One might argue that without establishments such as the Royal Society, a lot of great scientists in Great Britain might never have been able to publish.

Re:And

[khallow]

What are your criteria? Does research which has no practical application whatsoever but advances understanding of the whole get swept under the carpet?

Then it has practical application. A way, used today, is to consider citations, implications of the work, whether it advances understanding of the whole, etc. To claim that you can't "evaluate" this work is grossly anti-scientific.

Re:And

[Dr. Cody]

That's what makes it the sweetest revenge against his kind.

Re:And

[impaledsunset]

I was once modded -5: Anti-funny, but that on another Slashdot. You should see how this story looked there, when they discovered the top antiquark.

Re:And

[Mr2cents]

I think high energy physics and cosmology should always predicate the latest sexy experiment with some justification given the expense to the taxpayers as to what the applicability of all this is.

The cost of these experiments should be measured in F-16 fighters or something like that instead of dollars, it would make it seem negligable.

Just look at the budget in the USA and you'll see that most of the money goes to the industry of death, so they spend it on destruction instead of creativity.

Yet this fact seems to be brainwashed out of the publics' mind, so instead of protesting against the outrageous military spendings, people are whining about some Fermilab research budget. Pathetic!

Re:And

[Yewbert]

Damn. And it'll take an act of Heisenbergian uncertainty to escape from the pun-singularity.

I've clearly not made it out yet.

At least no one outside the event horizon can see me in here.

Right? Right?!?!

Re:And

[Anonymous Coward]

And... uh... my bottom hurts.....a stretch I know

sounds like your charm and beauty led to a strange coupling

The Truth is out there...

Re:And

[MightyDrunken]

Then it has practical application.

So to get this straight, some knowledge with no practical application has a practical application?

A way, used today, is to consider citations, implications of the work, whether it advances understanding of the whole, etc.

You only know this things after the work is done. Before you have done it you don't know what you will find because no one has done it before. So these criteria are useless to answer the question could the work have practical value or not. Until you have done it!

To claim that you can't "evaluate" this work is grossly anti-scientific.

A wise person understands that sometimes no one knows and we have a lot to learn.

Re:And

[marcosdumay]

No problem, I saw it, and it's already dead.

Re:And

[mcgrew]

Dabo!!

Re:And

[mcgrew]

Calm down and have a beer.

Re:And

[Amazing Quantum Man]

I once wrote that if Fourier had known that his work would lead to Britney Spears CDs, he'd have burned his notes and joined a monastery.

Re:And

[mcgrew]

Could anyone have predicted digital computers? Hell, could the inventors of digital computers have predicted modern desktops?

For a long time I posited that Isaac Asimov's "Multivac" was the closest anyone came to predicting the internet, but it turns out that Murray Leinster wrote a story in 1946 named A Logic Named Joe that predicted, and fairly accurately, personal computers (called "logics" in the story) and the internet. Like the real internet of today, it had ISPs (called "tanks" in the story).

The only two things he got wrong was a lack of user-generated content, and censorship.

I got Joe, after Laurine nearly got me. You know the logics setup. You got a logic in your house. It looks like a vision receiver used to, only it's got keys instead of dials and you punch the keys for what you wanna get. It's hooked in to the tank, which has the Carson Circuit all fixed up with relays. Say you punch "Station SNAFU" on your logic. Relays in the tank take over an' whatever vision-program SNAFU is telecastin' comes on your logic's screen. Or you punch "Sally Hancock's Phone" an' the screen blinks an' sputters an' you're hooked up with the logic in her house an' if somebody answers you got a vision-phone connection. But besides that, if you punch for the weather forecast or who won today's race at Hialeah or who was mistress of the White House durin' Garfield's administration or what is PDQ and R sellin' for today, that comes on the screen too. The relays in the tank do it. The tank is a big buildin' full of all the facts in creation an' all the recorded telecasts that ever was made--an' it's hooked in with all the other tanks all over the country--an' everything you wanna know or see or hear, you punch for it an' you get it. Very convenient. Also it does math for you, an' keeps books, an' acts as consultin' chemist, physicist, astronomer, an' tea-leaf reader, with a "Advice to the Lovelorn" thrown in. The only thing it won't do is tell you exactly what your wife meant when she said, "Oh, you think so, do you?" in that peculiar kinda voice. Logics don't work good on women. Only on things that make sense.

Logics are all right, though. They changed civilization, the highbrows tell us. All on accounta the Carson Circuit. And Joe shoulda been a perfectly normal logic, keeping some family or other from wearin' out its brains doin' the kids' homework for 'em.

The whole story is at the link.

Re:And

[PingPongBoy]

Wish I had some points right now.

Re:And

[rumith]

This thread is such a beauty :-)

Re:And

[Ghubi]

Knowledge is more important than breeding.

quoted for truth

Re:And

[Councilor Hart]

I work in applied physics, related to fusion and I don't think any physicist would say that funding for cern or fermilab should be cut to benefit fusion research or any other. Not even someone who works on fusion itself. We are all trying to understand the universe and push the boundaries of our knowledge and technology. It is extremely short sighted to direct (or even to try to direct) fundamental research. You never know where you might end up, and because of that funding is important. Who knows what unexpected discoveries will be made.

Re:And

[khallow]

So to get this straight, some knowledge with no practical application has a practical application?

It "advances understanding of the whole" which in my view is a practical application despite your assertion that it doesn't.

You only know this things after the work is done.

You can't know the full implication of the work over infinite time, but it is IMHO folly to research something without an understanding of some use for the research now.

Let's look at electricity, the only advance I didn't address in my previous post. When research into electricity was first done, there were two near future things that it could do and that researchers could figure out. First, it was used to figure out lightning protection for buildings and saving lives. It was noted that lightning and sparks looked and sounded similar, just different in scale. I imagine after speaking to lightning victims, the avid researcher would also note other similarities (eg, hair standing on end, static popping sounds perhaps). Second, electricity was a key test of empiricism, the idea that consistent explanations can be found for the natural world and that these can be determined solely through rigorous observation.

I'm not claiming that 18th century scientists knew computers were coming, but rather that in their time, practical applications for electricity could be found and the research justified on that basis alone.

A wise person understands that sometimes no one knows and we have a lot to learn.

What does that mean? Let me give a contrived exercise to prove my point. Suppose you have control over a billion dollars in public funds for research and it has to be spent. Two research teams, "A" and "B" have submitted proposals for that billion dollars. The money can't be split since each research team needs the entire billion dollars in order to conduct their research. A notable difference is that team A has vague details about the near future application of their research, as you say, they simply don't know. While team B presents strong evidence that indicates it is likely that team B will reap considerable benefit from its research now and the near future benefit to society from the research is likely to be much more than a billion dollars. There may be other differences between the teams, I won't set that in stone. Team A may employ a couple orders of magnitude more scientists, for example. What criteria do you use to decide who gets that money?

Re:And

[treeves]

But if you're cruising down the road in a straight line and at constant speed (i.e. not accelerating) then you suddenly turn the steering wheel, you've just accelerated. Not in the everyday-language sense of accelerate, but in the physics definition of accelerate. And that's what magnets due to (already) moving charged particles. But you knew that.

Re:And

[ConstableBrew]

Score 0, really? Mod that guy up!

Re:And

[Hurricane78]

I wholeheartedly disagree.

BEST. PUN-CHAIN. EVER.

Re:And

[moosesocks]

Should I mod this "up" or "down" ?

If we measure, won't that change the outcome?

We should let it simultaneously exist as funny and not exist as funny.

Oddly enough, that actually is how slashcode currently sees things. 'Funny' mods do zilch to your karma.

Re:And

[moosesocks]

No, no, no! This is not a healthy line of thought! There is absolutely no way you can predict with certainty the future benefits of any scientific research. Even electricity was of uncertain value. The very point of public funding is for research whose benefits aren't obvious, but whose results are a benefit to science as a whole. You say that you believe it is possible to 'evaluate potential research'. How do you go about doing that? What are your criteria? Does research which has no practical application whatsoever but advances understanding of the whole get swept under the carpet?

One might argue that without establishments such as the Royal Society, a lot of great scientists in Great Britain might never have been able to publish.

You make a good argument. However, when you have a fixed amount of money, and need to distribute funding, these judgment calls do need to be made.

This debate rages on, particularly in the field of Fusion research. There are several proposed options on the table for attaining a self-sustaining reaction, only enough money to seriously fund one, and a rather fierce debate about which option is "best".

Is the LHC a good value for the money? Should we have constructed the ILC first instead? Should an international consortium have bailed out the SSC in the 90s?

I'm all for funding as much basic research as possible, although there comes a point when funding has to be cut off or redirected.

I wonder

[QuantumG]

if school children will ever get taught about quarks. I mean, most 10 year olds can tell you about protons, electrons and neutrons.

Re:I wonder

[Zerth]

It was in my highschool text book ten years ago. The teacher never got that far, but it was in there.

They're probably still using the same book. I was rather lucky that they had just bought new books, considering it'd been at least 15 years since the last update before that. My book the grade before still had the "raisins in pudding" model of atoms.

Re:I wonder

[CrimsonAvenger]

if school children will ever get taught about quarks. I mean, most 10 year olds can tell you about protons, electrons and neutrons.

Perhaps when they find some use for quarks, they'll start teaching schoolchildren about them.

Re:I wonder

[Neanderthal Ninny]

Hmm. The use of quarks are like saying what is the use of an child.

Re:I wonder

[Jamamala]

How about explaining why protons have a +1 charge and neutrons have no charge? I'd say that's pretty useful. Ditto with explaining the charge of the anti-nucleons.

Re:I wonder

[bunratty]

I'm made of quarks, you insensitive clod!

Re:I wonder

[im_thatoneguy]

Hmm. The use of quarks are like saying what is the use of an child.

Coincidentally in this case the answer is the same: Nothing.

Re:I wonder

[CrimsonAvenger]

How about explaining why protons have a +1 charge and neutrons have no charge? I'd say that's pretty useful. Ditto with explaining the charge of the anti-nucleons.

Actually, they don't explain "why" they have +1 charge. Merely elaborate on the idea that they do so.

Note also that the reason that protons have +1 charge isn't especially useful, in and of itself. Interesting, perhaps, but not useful.

Re:I wonder

[CannonballHead]

Admittedly, I was homeschooled, but I was taught about quarks.

Re:I wonder

[CannonballHead]

Warning: totally off topic. :)

Actually, I have never liked Star Trek, really. Never watched it, except the old original movies. I think I saw three of them.. I really only liked Spock and Dr. Bones though.

I also wasn't a Star Wars fan, for the most part. I saw them once when I was pretty young, and once again in college, and I've seen Episodes 1 through 3 once each. LOTR is different ;)

I know you were joking, but may as well: homeschooled != nerd, geek, or socially inept. It just means my parents thought I would be better educated at home than in the public school system or even in the private schools. I tend to agree, having seen the public schools in our area. I learned more and learned it faster, giving more time for non-school activities... music lessons, computers, sports, etc..

Re:I wonder

[dtremenak]

Interesting, perhaps, but not useful.

All the more reason to teach it. We should be trying to get students interested in science.

Re:I wonder

[Belial6]

The reason people think that home schooled kids are nerds, geeks, or socially inept is because by the time they are 12 or 13, they behave and expect other to behave like adults. Put them in a room full of 30 other 13 year olds who still have the mentality of an 8 year old but with full adult libidos, and the well adjust home school kid seems out of place. It's the sane man in an insane world syndrome. Take any well adjusted adult, and put them in the body of a 13 year old, and they will seem out of place in a public school.

Re:I wonder

[Idiomatick]

Pretty sure I just heard a loud WOOSH. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark_(Star_Trek)

Also you are on /. commenting about particle physics. Sorry but I've got some news for you. While homeschooling might not be the cause..... you are indeed a nerd. Even if you didn't pick up the reference.

Re:I wonder

[Sir_Lewk]

My first year of college my roommate and I made a sport of picking the kids that were homeschooled out of groups of people. The defining characteristic? Social awkardness.

Now granted, we may have had plenty of false negatives but we *rarely* had false positives.

Re:I wonder

[lorenlal]

At 10, I could have told you about quarks... But I would've told you that the best use of them involved reciting the Rules of Acquisition.

Re:I wonder

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

If you think quarks are useless, eliminate them from your life and see what happens.

Re:I wonder

[CrimsonAvenger]

We should be trying to get students interested in science.

You'll get more students interested in science by demonstrating that it's useful and at least slightly fun. You won't get students interested in science by telling them that quarks make the math come out right.

Re:I wonder

[marcosdumay]

How the hell can a neutron star post on /.?

Myself, I'm also made of leptons...

Re:I wonder

[CannonballHead]

I'm also reading a textbook on spacetime physics, for fun... uh oh.

Meh, it's possible to be a nerd and not be a social freak. :)

Re:I wonder

[CannonballHead]

Of course, "social awkward"-ness is usually defined by the majority of the particular society, correct? So, yeah, if they don't fit in with the, shall we say, public school society, they will be socially "awkward." So would someone, at most colleges, that doesn't drink, smoke, or party. Calling them "socially awkward" makes it sound like its a bad thing. I'm not sure that is what you meant or not, but I think most people look down on those that don't quite fit into society, even if that very "society" is the problem.

Re:I wonder

[amRadioHed]

Enough with the wooshing please. It does not make bad jokes funny.

Better Post

[Anonymous Coward]

You might find Tomasso's piece better - he works with the CDF group.

http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/who-discovered-single-top-production/

Here's some context.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1452#comic

Bare/Single quark?

[cblack]

Just to be clear, this isn't a single/bare quark w/o a partner is it? As I thought isolating quarks outside of a hadron (w/ 1 or 2 other quarks) was not possible due to the nature of the strong force. Is what they are really saying is that they got an event to force just one top quark to decay once released from a hadron rather than 2 or more at once?

Re:Bare/Single quark?

[BitterOak]

Yes, quarks produced via the strong (or electromagnetic) interaction are always produced in quark/anti-quark pairs. So a strongly produced top quark would always be produced with an anti-top quark. Those two quarks would not generally end up in the same hadron, but they would both be produced at the same time.

The weak interaction can change quark flavors, so a top quark could be produced from some other flavor of quark, with no anti-top quark being produced in the event. All the quarks will end up in hadrons, though.

Re:Bare/Single quark?

[parrillada]

They are saying that the top quark is being produced one at a time, rather than in pairs (IAAP). It's actually subtle -- what had been observed before were 2 top quarks emerging from a gluon. Now they have observed one top quark (and another quark) emerging from a W-boson. Basically. This is not a major discovery, but it is another important showing off of the 'standard model' working very well at the energies we have so far probed.

Oh, and about isolating quarks. You cannot isolate a quark outside a hadron, but you can 'detect' the quark by observing the hadrons and leptons that it decays into, since they leave a distinct signature. The top quark is special because it decays before it even forms a hadron with other quarks.

Re:Bare/Single quark?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the papers is available on the arXiv, and it confirms that they were looking for top/anti-bottom pairs instead of the top/anti-top pairs produced by strong processes.

Re:Bare/Single quark?

[Lawrence_Bird]

no it is not a 'free' quark. it can be produced as tsbar, tdbar or most likley tbbar as opposed to the more common ttbar pair.

Re:Bare/Single quark?

[Roger W Moore]

Now they have observed one top quark (and another quark) emerging from a W-boson.

Actually that is only one of the single-top processes that we looked for. You can also have a W-boson exchange which changes the flavour of two quarks, one of them into a top. With enough statistics you can distinguish the two different mechanisms and measure their ratio which is a good way to detect new physics.

You cannot isolate a quark outside a hadron... The top quark is special because it decays before it even forms a hadron with other quarks.

So, in fact, you can actually study isolated top quarks which are outside a hadron because the top quark never exists in a bound state. Indeed this is one of the interesting things about the top quark in that you can study the properties of an unbound quark.

Re:Bare/Single quark?

[Phroon]

This is not a major discovery, but it is another important showing off of the 'standard model' working very well at the energies we have so far probed.

Single-top is, however, one of the backgrounds in the search for the Higgs boson. For Fermilab to discover the Higgs, they have to discover single-top first.

Free quarks?

[AdamHaun]

I remember from the Usenet Physics FAQ that quarks are normally bound together too tightly to be observed (although that article is almost fifteen years old). Is this an exception or is something else going on? Have other single quarks been observed too?

Re:Free quarks?

[FooAtWFU]

Most of the time when a lab "observes" an interesting particle they don't actually detect it, they just detect all the crazy debris that it produces when it explodes^W decays.

Another Image of Quark

[Neptunes_Trident]

Stunning! http://api.ning.com/files/hcRIYakWETefjoXTG3*qMTWR85Jo9KBEOHF8P46bll8_/quark.jpg

Explanation wanted

[rewt66]

The fine article says that this results limits the number of possible quarks. Can someone give an explanation (or even the outline of one) at a level that someone with a B.S. in physics can understand?

Re:Explanation wanted

[shermo]

These posts normally end in [NO CARRIER]

They're normmaly funnier too.

Re:Explanation wanted

[Phroon]

The fine article says that this results limits the number of possible quarks. Can someone give an explanation (or even the outline of one) at a level that someone with a B.S. in physics can understand?

One of the things single-top is sensitive to is the coupling strength of the top and bottom quarks via the weak force. The value of this coupling is tightly constrained if one assumes that there are only six quarks (ie. there are three generations of matter). The fact that they measured it and it's within the six quark ballpark means that it is very likely that there isn't another pair of quarks waiting to be discovered.

The basic idea is that if the top and bottom coupling strength is measured to be less than the value we expect for six quarks then that means that some of that coupling strength actually goes to a different, seventh or eighth, quark. But I'm grossly simplifying things here for the general slashdot crowd.

Re:Explanation wanted

[shadowbearer]

  Thanks for that. I'm not a physicist but I'm fairly well versed with quantum theory, however the relationship was still confusing.

  Yours is the clearest "plain language" explanation I've seen. :)

SB

Which came first, the comic or the announcement?

[illegalcortex]

Seems appropriate.

Queue the gay, leather scene, quark jokes

[alcmaeon]

Are the top quarks rarer than the sub bottom quarks?

Re:Queue the gay, leather scene, quark jokes

[geekgirlandrea]

Are the top quarks rarer than the sub bottom quarks?

Yes, but they wear one of eight different colors of gluon in their left pants pocket so you can identify them easily.

pictures k thx

[v1]

The production of single top quarks, which involves the weak nuclear force and is harder to identify experimentally, has now been observed

Pictures, or it didn't happen.

Sub-Atomic Porn

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, the Top Quark has now been observed. What they didn't tell you is that it was smacking around a naked, tied-up and moaning Bottom Quark at the time.

and its not a 'free' quark

[Lawrence_Bird]

it is just not produced as a ttbar pair, rather it is a tdbar, tsbar or more likley tbbar. Just in case the 'single' confuses anyone.

Does anyone else find it 'strange' that....

[zappepcs]

Fermilab seemed to be counted out, no longer useful, with the advent of the LHC? How many recent science ventures turned out to be more useful than originally thought, and initially thought less useful than a replacement?

Space station? Hubble telescope? Mars rovers? ... you get the point. Why would anyone count Fermilab out? I just find that odd. Sure, it doesn't have the professed capabilities of the LHC, but then neither does the LHC right now. I seem to remember something about not fixing it if it ain't broke being relatively true.

I expect more from Fermilab too.

This is so much like American Idol or something ... gah!

Re:Does anyone else find it 'strange' that....

[interkin3tic]

Sure, it doesn't have the professed capabilities of the LHC, but then neither does the LHC right now.

Exploding and releasing a lot of gas? Fermilab should go for Del Taco, they'd get right back in the game.

Re:Does anyone else find it 'strange' that....

[The Master Control P]

Not really suprising. I disagree in some sense, but it's not suprising. We've discovered close to (but as the article demonstrates not quite) everything we can discover at the energy levels the Tevatron can generate - Needs bigger particle gun. And if the new one at CERN doesn't help, the next new one will have to be bigger than earth :/

Re:Does anyone else find it 'strange' that....

[vix86]

I was reading earlier last month that Fermilab thinks they might have a 50% (possibly more) chance of detecting the Higgs assuming the amount of energy needed to break it apart is low. So ya, Fermilab can still provide us with a lot of new findings before LHC goes active later this year.

Re:Does anyone else find it 'strange' that....

[Loadmaster]

Well, the US could always finish the Superconducting Super Collider (40 TeV vs 14 TeV). Even after the LHC was finished this would be a big deal.

You know, if congress (President Clinton tried to get it built) would have funded it we would be talking about the SSC in the US instead of the LHC in Geneva. It makes me sad that the US had the foresight to create a collider that would have produced results for decades but decided to kill it because of short-sighted congressmen.

Re:Does anyone else find it 'strange' that....

[Archimboldo]

It makes me sad that the US had the foresight to create a collider that would have produced results for decades but decided to kill it because of short-sighted congressmen.

From a cost/benefit perspective, I think that $18 billion, the cost of the SSC converted into 2009 dollars, probably did better in other science projects. Not that there weren't other wastes of research dollars, such as the ISS.

Concept of Superposition

[PalmHair]

... when they find some use for quarks...

In quantum world all particles are in superposition of being both useful and useless. You cannot determine usefulness of a quantum particle without measuring (and destroying as a result) it.

Re:Concept of Superposition

[skelterjohn]

Measuring a particle's usefulness seems like a waste of a particle's usefulness.

Whats the big deal?

[evil-osm]

Better picture can be found here.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Well that means

[eclectro]

Currently the world's most powerful operating particle accelerator

And that means the most powerful non-operating particle accelerator is in my basement. I have a nonworking zed-pm, the one in Switzerland doesn't. The one Switzerland cracked their magnet. My magnet is fine. The one in Switzerland has massive problems with cooling, mine doesn't as it operates at room temperature.

size doesn't matter

[ILuvRamen]

Everyone else is busy showing off their ridiculously gigantic accelerators while the littler one makes all the discoveries. I guess that means it's not the size of the particle accelerator but how wisely you use it :D

Re:size doesn't matter

[loganljb]

I think that what this actually demonstrates is that it isn't the size of the accelerator that matters -- it's how long you can keep it running before it explodes.

Re:size doesn't matter

[nu1x]

OR, how many times it can successively explode, which would also be quite impressive. And surprising.

I'm dumb, I think.

[bucky0]

I thought unbound (single) quarks were didn't exist?

Re:I'm dumb, I think.

[jd]

They do, but in the Middle East, they are not permitted to be seen in public without wearing a full atom.

Re:I'm dumb, I think.

[Phroon]

There's a few things going on here that are related in different ways.

1) The single-top isn't the only quark being produced, it's actually produced with a bottom quark at the same time. Usual top quark production is in pairs, one top quark one anti-top quark, but single-top is different; a top quark is produced with a anti-bottom quark.
2) The top quark decays before it can hadronize. That is, it decays before it can pick up a partner quark. This is completely allowed in the Standard Model, but I'm a bit sketchy on the details. I think it behaves as though it was attached with the other quark it was produced with.

Re:I'm dumb, I think.

[Late Adopter]

I think it behaves as though it was attached with the other quark it was produced with.

Not really, we're talking about *really* short timespans, much faster than strong interactions (order m_t-m_b is about a thousand times greater than order Lambda).

It behaves pretty much like a free top quark, that is, it's gone before it matters and only shows up as a mass resonance in a particular observable, or an excess of events over other Standard Model background after particular cuts in observables.

it's a faked signal

[TropicalCoder]

...experimenters have more than doubled the amount of data analyzed and sharpened selection and analysis techniques, making the discovery possible. For each experiment, the probability that background events have faked the signal is now only one in nearly four million , allowing both collaborations to claim a bona fide discovery...

Emphases mine... I am not convinced this isn't a faked signal. With that possibility having a chance of one in four million, how many millions of collisions have they done in the past 15 years? Far more than 4 million, I would suspect.

The two collaborations have been searching for this rare process for the last fifteen years, starting before the discovery of the top quark in 1995.

...and another thing. Look at that diagram showing a muon went here and a neutrino went there - how in the world did they detect that neutrino, I ask? I bet it zipped right through their detector without so much a pausing to say hello.

Re:it's a faked signal

[Phroon]

Emphases mine... I am not convinced this isn't a faked signal. With that possibility having a chance of one in four million, how many millions of collisions have they done in the past 15 years? Far more than 4 million, I would suspect.

You aren't quite grasping what he means by one in four million. This wasn't a single event we are talking about here.

The way the statistics work is that you would have to run the entire Fermilab experiment four million times to get what they see from a fake signal. It's a cumulative probability over all the events ever recorded at Fermilab.

...and another thing. Look at that diagram showing a muon went here and a neutrino went there - how in the world did they detect that neutrino, I ask? I bet it zipped right through their detector without so much a pausing to say hello.

They didn't detect it directly. The key to 'detecting' the neutrino is to count up everything else in the remnants collision and notice that it recoils off of something that you didn't detect. It acts as though what you can see in your detector is violating the conservation of energy. But in reality there's an undetectable neutrino zipping through the detector. So you calculate how much energy and in which direction such a neutrino would travel in order to conserve energy, and that's where they get that little diagram.

Re:it's a faked signal

[khallow]

No. Occam's Razor gets overused, but in this case, it works. If you see a neutrino sized hole in your experiment, do you think "oh, neutrino passed out of the experiment", or "conservation of energy is violated"? Keep in mind that the odds of a neutrino actually interacting with the detectors is orders of magnitude lower than 1 in N where N is the number of observations (trillions, I think).

Re:it's a faked signal

[Ginger Unicorn]

firstly evidence!=proof, and secondly all the mountains of evidence we have that the violation of conservation of energy is impossible renders that interpretation of the data very dubious, especially when an alternative interpretation that falls naturally out of a well supported model easily accommodates (and probably predicts) this data.

Re:it's a faked signal

[SBacks]

Keep in mind that the odds of a neutrino actually interacting with the detectors is orders of magnitude lower than 1 in N where N is the number of observations (trillions, I think).

So, the more detectors, the worse your odds of detecting it are? I think something strange is going on.

Re:it's a faked signal

[khallow]

So, the more detectors, the worse your odds of detecting it are? I think something strange is going on.

The number of detectors has been fixed ahead of the observations. My understanding is that neutrinos interact so weakly, that you could fire one through the Earth with much lower odds than 1 in several trillion that it hits something. So even if you completely rebuilt the entire Earth as particle detectors, it is very unlikely to observe any neutrinos coming from these rare collisions.

Ohhhhhhhhh..... REALLY???

[Anonymous Coward]

If it gets modded up, you can color me tickled pink.

I'd bet you wouldn't say that to the grand NAGUS??

They have laready heard of quarks

[Roger W Moore]

I got taught about quarks at secondary school years ago in the UK. As a particle physicist who was actually involved in this analysis I now go to schools and give talks about particle physics and they have usually heard of quarks (here in Canada) even if they are not quite sure what they are.

Re:They have laready heard of quarks

[spopepro]

I now go to schools and give talks about particle physics and they have usually heard of quarks (here in Canada) even if they are not quite sure what they are.

I appreciate this, as sometimes it may be tough as a secondary science teacher to keep on top of things. Example: In my 1997 chemistry class I was instructed that a neutron was a proton with an electron attached to it (which accounted for the greater mass of the neutron, of course). I took the teacher to task, but only because I was hooked years before by a program at Lawrence Livermore Labs where I got to play with their Crays and tour some of there cooler stuff, like the Nova Laser. Posters in my room were then airplanes, rock bands and the standard model.

If it wasn't for research science reaching out to hook kids (and hopefully teachers, but they can be a tougher sell) new findings would only slowly trickle down to k-12 schools.

Generally true but not for top

[Roger W Moore]

First this is production of single top quarks, not production of a single quark. The production mechanisms we looked for always produce a top and a b quark together i.e. single as in one top quark as opposed to two top quarks.

The top quark is unusual in that it only ever exists as an unbound quark. The reason is that it has such a large mass that it decays to a b quark so rapidly that it does not live long enough to become bound.

Re:You are wrong . . .

[GymW]

And everyone you mentioned is either unreliable, not cost effective, is dependent on random events, or is costly to maintain. You seem to lump all nuclear together. I am absolutely opposed to nuclear power by fission. Fission creates byproducts that potentially spell disaster for future generations or terrific opportunities for terrorism. I couldn't agree with you more in respect to fission. Nuclear Fission is an absolutely horrible short sighted solution. Fusion on the other hand virtually eliminates all of these problems. Its current problems right now are designing the proper containment vessel and sustaining the reaction. Sooner or later these issues will be resolved and the world will switch to fusion given its cost of operation and virtual elimination of hazardous byproducts. Why not now instead of later? Why waste money on already limited or obsolete technologies instead of committing to an emerging technology that promises to produce virtually unlimited, cheap, and green power?

Re:If we treated all sciencefacilities like Fermil

[Late Adopter]

That's not entirely fair. We *do* keep a number of accelerators, like the neutron source in Oakridge, or the deep-inelastic-scattering electron accelerator at Jefferson Lab. Each machine has it's own niche, much like telescopes. Fermilab, however, serves the exact same purpose as the LHC: high-energy hadron-hadron collisions in a synchrotron. The LHC will take data at 100 times the rate and 10 times the energy. The only reason to keep the Tevatron around (and there *are* other things at Fermilab) is to keep all that institutional knowledge employed for when you're ready to build the next-big-thing.

Once the LHC shows that it's running reliably, the Tevatron really is obsolete.

Re:You are wrong . . .

[Muad'Dave]

Fission doesn't have to be the wasteful, inefficient, and proliferation-prone mess that it is today. There are more efficient, less proliferation-prone ways to provide fission-based power than wasting 98%+ of the energy in the fuel rods and storing the 'waste' in the open.

Most estimates place the reserves of usable fuel for breeders at 600,000+ years at current consumption. That's not bad!

I agree that fusion may well be the best answer, but do we have the luxury of waiting for it to be ready for prime time? I think we should invest in breeder technology until we can get fusion up and running reliably.

You're wrong about the Boson...

[gillbates]

It's really a Moron instead. A few years ago a very important discovery was made:

Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction normally taking less than a second, to take from four days to four years to complete.

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 2-6 years. It does not decay, but undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium's mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes, not to mention multiple oxymorons.

This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a critical concentration. That hypothetical quantity might normally be called 'critical mass' but, in this unique case it is known as 'critical mess'.

When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium (Am), another just-discovered element that radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

Update: Top Quark Cancels EHarmony.com Account

[tillerman35]

Rueters, Batavia IL: Citing a weak nuclear force and inability to provide satisfying quantum entanglement, a local Top Quark has cancelled his EHarmony.com account and given up on finding a paired partner. "I feel like I'm decaying into something strange. I'm down all the time. At the bottom of my barrel. It's sort of like I'm never quite sure of where I am, or where I'm going, or at least not both at the same time," said the disappointed fundamental particle of creation.

EHarmony.com representatives say they tried to talk the depressed 31x10^-33year-old, but were unable to convince him to keep his account active. "We don't offer refunds, but we did him an additional 6 femtoseconds to find that scintillating someone."

When interviewed, the parents of the particle, also expressed disappointment. "We were hoping he'd find a Jewish girl, get married, maybe give us a little boson someday. Where did I go wrong?" sobbed his mother. "He'll be fine, honey" said the quark's father, comforting his wife. "After all, we had to go through 20 billion collisions to find each other, didn't we?" The father, a well-respected lawyer and his wife, a homemaker, live in Hackensack but speak to their son regularly.

Looking at his latest matches, the Top Quark sighed. "Mom and Dad are so different. He's a proton, she's so totally anti-proton. I don't know. If they could find each other, why can't I find anybody?"

Re:You are wrong . . .

[GymW]

I must disagree with you. First of all a significant amount of waste is not being stored above ground. A significant amount is being stored underground or is planned to - as soon or if they can figure out a way to stabilize it for 10's of thousands of years. France is into breeder reactors. The problem is they have bred so much they don't know what to do with it. They are running out of storage capacity. So naturally they are encouraging others to build fission reactors as well - which will help them get rid of their surplus. Of course this can snowball. As more breeders are built more excess starts building up. Eventually you land up with a huge pile of waste. That is the nature of fission. Millions are being spent right now to figure out how to handle it but no long term solution exists. Projects include condensing it down and incorporating into synthetic rock. They know that drum storage simply will not last. There is even a signage project to figure out how to mark radioactive dump sites to warn future generations. Additionally nuclear waste sites are a 'candy store' for terrorists. It is time we started thinking about serious long term solutions instead of wasting time and money on quick fixes.

Re:You are wrong . . .

[Muad'Dave]

It seems to me that you haven't read any papers on breeder technology. Waste from a breeder is not 'hot' for 10,000 years - the point of burning up the long half life actinides is to eliminate them from the waste stream, making what little waste there is very hot for a very short time. That's how radiation works - things are either very hot for a short time or moderately hot for a long time.

You realize that all of the nuclear waste in the US today is stored on-site in casks either _in the open_ or in a shallow pool of water?

I would suggest you read up on modern reactor technology (and existing, proven technology that Clinton canned like the IFR) before you rehash arguments based on information from the 1950's.

Web Comics FTW!

[Chelloveck]

Once again, web comics get it right...

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

Re:You are wrong . . .

[GymW]

A quick search yields: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-nuclear-waste11-2009mar11,0,6987225.story You may try to hide from the truth, but you can't ignore it forever.

Re:You are wrong . . .

[Muad'Dave]

Your article proves my point!!! That waste was generated by a once-thru reactor and is dangerous _because_ there is so much energy left in it! A once-thru reactor burns at most 1-2% of the available energy in the fuel. A fast neutron reactor would have burned up closer to 98% of the fuel, leaving waste that was dangerous for years, not thousands of years.

As I said, read up on modern fuel cycles - quit dragging Carter's idiotic one-thru legacy into discussions of the future of nuclear energy. An IFR could burn up 90+% of today's waste as fuel!

Re:You are wrong . . .

[GymW]

You are certainly entitled to your opinion and the right to express it - despite the preponderance of information that disagrees with you.