Welcome to NMCPP!
The New Mexico Center for Particle Physics (NMCPP) exists to promote cooperative program(s) in the general research areas of particle physics and particle astrophysics within UNM and with neighboring institutions in NM. Additionally, the NMCPP web pages provide an opportunity to bring these research programs to the attention of prospective undergraduate and graduate students.The NMCPP conducts research in the following areas:- High Energy/Elementary Particle Physics
- Medium Energy Physics
- Nuclear/Particle Theory
- Particle Astrophysics
Looking for an exciting research opportunity? Check out our current opportunities and consider joining the researchers and students at NMCPP.
A Prediction from String Theory, with Strings Attached (2 March 2007) - from SCIENCE NEWS
For decades researchers have tried to wrest testable predictions from string theory, the leading candidate for a more fundamental understanding of the universe. Now physicists say they have used one of the most sophisticated pieces of string theory to predict properties of the ultradense matter created in an atom smasher in Long Island, N.Y. If confirmed, however, the prediction would not offer evidence for string theory, which requires the existence of extra dimensions of space full of higher-dimensional stringlike objects and other widgets. Instead, it would establish that some of string theory's mathematics could be used to study the forces at work inside an atom's nucleus.
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at the Brookhaven National Laboratory smashes together the nuclei of gold atoms to create hot, ultradense sprays of particles, the likes of which have not occurred since the first few microseconds of the big bang-the intense burst of energy that kicked off the universe. These mini-explosions temporarily liberate quarks, the particles normally trapped inside protons and neutrons, along with gluons, the particles that hold quarks together. Researchers have dubbed this state of matter the quark-gluon plasma.
Such attempts are exciting, agrees Ulrich Heinz, a theoretical physicist at Ohio State University, but he says the QCD-like theory is still too far removed from reality to be convincing. "Even if any of the numbers worked out by accident, I don't think it would validate the approach," he says. "If they predict the color of an apple, and somebody looks at a pear and finds it has the same color, would you say that the prediction was correct?"
Zajc says RHIC should be able to gather enough data in the next two years to evaluate the J/psi prediction. "It would require a fairly spectacular numerical agreement before you would argue it establishes the superiority of these methods" over more conventional calculations, he says. Finding that agreement might be tough, he notes, because J/psi screening is not measured directly but has to be inferred, leaving room for argument about its true value.