Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

Dabbing_Squid OP t1_iqsbwcw wrote

Reply to comment by RobusEtCeleritas in Does the Large Hadron colliders Collision energy of 13 TeV mean it can detect particles on Mass scales of 13 TeV? How do you convert eV in Energy to Mass eV if that makes sense? by Dabbing_Squid

How likely could that be? And the range of the next colliders only go up like 1 I order of magnitude from what I understand. Far away from what the GUT scale might be: I only ask because I was reading about criticisms of new particle colliders and some physicists believe if the next collider is anything below like 200TeV it won’t be worth the money as it’s essentially guessing in the dark.

And also the same physics said that only use would be to rule out theories that are more likely than not false.

4

forte2718 t1_iqsjy06 wrote

With some exceptions for certain kinds of hypothetical phenomena, where we have reason to expect a certain energy scale or range of energy scales (like how we expected to find the W and Z bosons around the scale of the Fermi constant, roughly 100 GeV), it seems to be generally considered unlikely.

High-energy particle physicists often consider what is known as the [desert](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_(particle_physics)), which is a large gap in energy scales between the electroweak and strong scales where no significant new physics is anticipated to be found.

There are some valid reasons to be skeptical about whether there is such a desert though, of course, and there are certain classes of hypothetical phenomena that are proposed to lie within the desert, such as heavy superpartners to each of the known particles if supersymmetry exists but is spontaneously broken in nature, or heavy sterile neutrinos if right-handed neutrinos exist and there is a see-saw mechanism that drives the right-handed neutrinos to have very heavy masses while driving the left-handed neutrinos to have very light masses.

14

Dabbing_Squid OP t1_iqu2gdd wrote

Well it comes to the theories themselves I understand they have certain eV ranges. Are these ranges gigantic ? I read somewhere that while the current large hadron detector has constrained Large Extra dimensions. It still seems to suggest that the possible eV Range of detections of what I assume is either branes or some kind of extra dimensions goes all the way from 3TeV which is what apparently we have checked so far goes possibly up to the GUT scale itself.

Does that mean unless we build some kind of Gigantic particle collider that is somehow the distance of Earth to Mars. We may very well never reach these scales for possibly centuries? Can you observe certain phenomenon at those scales with telescopes from some mechanism. I’m sorry if I’m asking a billion questions this stuff is just amazing to me.

3

forte2718 t1_iquj09w wrote

>Well it comes to the theories themselves I understand they have certain eV ranges. Are these ranges gigantic ?

The gap between the electroweak and GUT scales is pretty gigantic. As for theories of new physics between them, it depends on the theory. Some have narrower constraints on their possible ranges than others.

>It still seems to suggest that the possible eV Range of detections of what I assume is either branes or some kind of extra dimensions goes all the way from 3TeV which is what apparently we have checked so far goes possibly up to the GUT scale itself.

Yes, my understanding is that colliders like the LHC can only raise the lower limit on the energy scale (or equivalently, lower the upper limit on the length scale) at which any small extra dimensions could become apparent, but since there isn't really any way to place an upper limit I am aware of, the range of possibilities is quite large.

>Does that mean unless we build some kind of Gigantic particle collider that is somehow the distance of Earth to Mars. We may very well never reach these scales for possibly centuries?

Essentially, yes. We can keep making incremental improvements — perhaps even a few substantial leaps — but speaking frankly a lot of the hypothetical higher-energy phenomena that is closer to the GUT scale are likely to be practically inaccessible to us for ... well, probably more than just centuries. Personally I place the likelihood that human civilization peaks and wanes to be greater than the likelihood that we ever make it far enough to test any physics that might lie near the GUT scale.

>Can you observe certain phenomenon at those scales with telescopes from some mechanism.

Only if you can find a natural system out there in the cosmos which both exhibits those phenomena and is observable with a telescope. Some important high-energy phenomena, such as those at the surface of a neutron star, might become observable (but also with some very dramatic improvements in telescope capacities). But it's not like we could point a telescope and see things like individual particles out there in space, especially not high-energy particles that nearly instantly decay after being produced. That might happen in, say, a supernova event, but imagining the feat of engineering it would take to make such tiny and precise measurements in the vicinity of a supernova without being obliterated ... it's probably much simpler to just create any such particles in a laboratory on or near Earth, even if it does take up such an enormous amount of energy to access.

>I’m sorry if I’m asking a billion questions this stuff is just amazing to me.

Nah, no worries, it is good that you are curious! :) You are asking good and thoughtful questions; keep 'em coming if you like!

Cheers,

3