It’s been a busy year at the LHC and in heavy ion physics.
In ALICE we’ve gotten out nine papers on data, including:
- Three papers on charged particle multiplicities in proton-proton collisions
- A paper on the anti-proton to proton ratio in proton-proton collisions
- A paper on Bose-Einstein Correlations in proton-proton collisions
- A paper on the spectra of particles in proton-proton collisions
- A paper on the multiplicity of charged hadrons in lead-lead collisions
- A paper on particle flow in lead-lead collisions
- A paper on single hadron suppression in lead-lead collisions (ie, jet quenching)
The links above are to explanations of the papers. I haven’t quite gotten to writing a post on Bose-Einstein Correlations, but they are another way of measuring the size of the proton. The spectra of charged hadrons is basically a measurement of how many particles are created in a collision and how fast are they going. It’s been a good year for ALICE! And a good year to be a heavy ion physicist. ATLAS observed jet quenching and CMS observed the ridge, a feature previously only observed in heavy ion collisions, in proton-proton collisions.
And all of our hard work hasn’t gone unnoticed – The Onion, while declaring Snooki to be one of the most important people of 2010, said that those of us working on the LHC would be more deserving. And my favorite radio show Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me even mentioned the first lead-lead collisions in one of their Listener Limerick challenges. (It’s the second time my field came up on the show – the first was when I was a contestant.)
So Merry Quark Mass and Happy Glue Year!
Tags: ALICE
