Tag Archives: relativistic

Heavy Flavor Tracker for STAR

New Detector System from Berkeley Lab for Quark-Gluon Plasma Studies May Lead to Better Understanding of Early Universe

In the first few microseconds after the big bang, the universe was a superhot, superdense primordial soup of “quarks” and “gluons,” particles of matter and carriers of force respectively. This quark-gluon plasma cooled almost instantly but it’s brief existence set the stage for the universe we know today. To better understand how our universe evolved, scientists are re-creating a quark-gluon plasma in giant particle accelerators such as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), where an elaborate experiment called “STAR,” for Solenoidal Tracker at RHIC, has been collecting and analyzing data for the past decade. The STAR experiment is now poised for a major upgrade with the introduction of a new particle detector system, called the “Heavy Flavor Tracker,” that is the most advanced of its kind in the world. (more…)

Read More

Testing Einstein’s E=mc2 in Outer Space

UA physicist Andrei Lebed has stirred the physics community with an intriguing idea yet to be tested experimentally: The world’s most iconic equation, Albert Einstein’s E=mc2, may be correct or not depending on where you are in space.

With the first explosions of atomic bombs, the world became witness to one of the most important and consequential principles in physics: Energy and mass, fundamentally speaking, are the same thing and can, in fact, be converted into each other.

This was first demonstrated by Albert Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity and famously expressed in his iconic equation, E=mc2, where E stands for energy, m for mass and c for the speed of light (squared). (more…)

Read More

Microprocessors From Pencil Lead

UA physicists are making discoveries that may advance electronic circuit technology.

Graphite, more commonly known as pencil lead, could become the next big thing in the quest for smaller and less power-hungry electronics.

Resembling chicken wire on a nano scale, graphene – single sheets of graphite – is only one atom thick, making it the world’s thinnest material. Two million graphene sheets stacked up would not be as thick as a credit card. (more…)

Read More