'Big Bang' recreated in lab

GENEVA: Scientists at the world's largest atom smasher said they had succeeded in recreating conditions shortly after the Big Bang by switching the particles they use for collisions from protons to much heavier lead ions.

The Large Hadron Collider recorded its first lead ion collisions on Sunday and has since stabilized the twin beams sufficiently to start running physics experiments, said a spokeswoman for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN.

The collisions produce an effect that is as close as researchers have ever come to observing the state of matter moments after the formation of the universe, which is believed to have begun with a colossal explosion known as the Big Bang.

The event inside the collider "is a very, very, very small bang,'' CERN spokeswoman Barbara Warmbein said.

Still, researchers are hoping the collisions will be powerful enough to produce a thick soup of matter called "quark-gluon plasma'' that will help them gain a deeper insight into how the universe began.

The $10-billion Large Hadron Collider was fired up in September 2008 and, despite some technical setbacks, has been hailed by scientists as a key tool for understanding or reshaping our knowledge about the universe.

Most of the time it will be used to smash together protons in the hope that one of the four giant detectors — situated around the collider's 17-mile (27-kilometer) tunnel under the Swiss-French border — will find evidence of dark matter, antimatter and maybe even hidden dimensions of space and time.

But for one month each year, before shutting down for winter maintenance in December, the Large Hadron Collider will smash together lead ions, said Warmbein.

Lead ions — which are lead atoms with the electrons removed — are much heavier than protons, meaning the energy used to circulate them is far higher.

"They are more likely to create the state of matter that ALICE is looking for,'' said Warmbein, referring to the detector that will be used to search for the plasma.

The resulting quark-gluon plasma, which is initially many times hotter than the sun, quickly cools, causing subatomic particles to stick together and form protons and neutrons. Scientists believe that by studying this process they will better understand how matter came into being.

Warmbein said that it will likely be months, if not years, before scientists make significant new discoveries.

Physics Reveals The Secrets Of Saint Francis

Source: Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
Date: September 11, 2007


Science Daily....The tunic believed to have been worn by Saint Francis of Assisi preserved in the Church of Saint Francis in Cortona (Province of Arezzo) dates back to the period in which the saint lived, whereas the tunic preserved in the Church of Santa Croce in Florence was made after his death.

Carbon 14 measurements, which allow a relic to be dated, show that the tunic in Santa Croce dates back to some time between the late 13th century and late 14th century and thus could not have belonged to the “Poor Man of Assisi”, who died in 1226. These and other discovers were made possible through the analysis of the relics with a tandem particle accelerator, which was performed by the Laboratory of Nuclear Techniques for Cultural Heritage (LABEC) of the INFN of Florence.

The results of the study were presented in Florence at the European Conference on Accelerators in Applied Research and Technology (ECAART) and will be published in the volume “L’eredità del Padre: le reliquie di San Francesco a Cortona” (which will be released in a few weeks by Edizioni Messaggero di Sant’Antonio). The volume will include the complete results of an interdisciplinary investigation which included both scientific and humanist research and which was promoted by the Tuscany Province Chapter of the Franciscan Order “Friars Minor Conventual”.

The analyses were conducted with a radiocarbon method, measuring the radiocarbon using Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS). From each tunic, researchers took from 5 to 7 samples of fabric, each of which was smaller than one square centimetre and weighed around 10 milligrams. Multiple samples were taken to avoid doubts or ambiguities (due to, for example, the presence of patches that were added to the tunic at a later time), thus increasing the analysis’ validity.

Each sample of wool was then treated so as to extract only the carbon, obtaining a small graphite pellet weighing about 0.8 milligrams. The pellet was then placed in the accelerator’s chamber, where it was exposed to a beam of cesium ions, “scratching” the pellet’s surface and extracting carbon isotopes 12, 13, and 14. The accelerator used by the INFN separately measured the quantity of the three isotopes. Relics are dated by calculating the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12, the quantities of which are “counted” in the accelerator’s detectors. Both great delicacy and exceptional sensitivity are required for taking these measurements; in fact, the ratio of carbon 14 to carbon 12 is only around one to one trillion, or even lower.

The analysis of the tunic preserved in the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence showed that it dates back to a period between the end of the 1200s and the end of the 1300s, revealing that it was made at least 80 years after Saint Francis’ death and thus could not have belonged to him.

By contrast, the dates of all of the fragments taken from the tunic in the church in Cortona coincide with the period of Saint Francis’ life (the average results show that the tunic was made between 1155 and 1225). The tunic is one of three Franciscan relics, which also include a finely embroidered cushion and a book of gospels believed to have been brought to Cortona by Friar Elia, Saint Francis’ first successor as leader of the order.

LABEC researchers also analysed the composition of the precious metal thread used to embroider the cover of the cushion on which the Saint’s head was placed upon his death, and they used the carbon 14 method to date the fabric of the cushion itself. Moreover, the book of gospels was subjected to in-depth codicological and paleographic investigations by researchers at the University of Siena. Based on both the scientific evidence and humanistic research, the cushion and the book of gospels were also found to date back to the period in which Saint Francis lived.

Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare.