A Scientist Stumbled Upon a New Duality

They have no idea why it exists, so far it only adds to the mysterious web of mathematical connections between contrasting theories of physics

Hiya!

I admit I’m light years away from understanding any math related to physics, but I have a fantastic time learning about the concepts and what the formulas mean. I especially love physics because it’s weird. Physics is a sort of rebel of the sciences, with rules that just don’t make sense (yet). We’re also rarely satisfied by the discoveries made in physics. More often, they just lead to more questions.

In this way, physics is maddening and fascinating simultaneously—especially particle physics. Like how particle physicist Lance Dixon serendipitously stumbled upon a new duality without even trying. Yet, what he discovered doesn’t make any sense, and no one can figure out why it should exist at all.

Physics Basics

I won’t lie. It took me a while to grasp what Dixon found because physics is an incredibly challenging subject to wrap our minds around, regardless of how smart someone is. So before I tell you about Dixon’s discovery, I’m going to share some terms and concepts that might make it easier for you to understand it. Of course, if you’re a smarty-pants and are already familiar with this stuff, then feel free to skip ahead.

The Standard Model of Particle Physics

Let’s begin with the standard model of particle physics, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like and is probably a term you’ve at least heard before. The standard model is the set of rules we’ve discovered so far to describe the subatomic world, including all the known particles and their interactions.

Scientists have tested the model thousands of times, which only refined its precision and is why it’s considered one of the most significant achievements of modern science.

Yet, the standard model still confounds even the brightest minds, and despite everything we’ve learned, we don’t know how much we don’t know. Even what we think we know is riddled with inconsistencies.

Scattering Processes

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is located between 165 and 575 feet (50 and 175 meters) below the France and Switzerland border. As an almost 17-mile (27 km) long circle, it’s the world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator.

The LHC is a fantastic feat of engineering that allows scientists to test what happens when various protons (made of particles) collide at high speeds. Which, by the way, is no easy task. It’s kinda like shooting two needles over 6 miles apart so accurately that they hit head-on at the halfway point. Except instead of needles, they’re microscopic particles traveling near the speed of light.

When the particles collide, they often change in various ways, sometimes becoming entirely new particles. In the case of the new duality, two gluon particles from different protons can become one gluon and one Higgs particle after colliding. Additionally, the two gluons can also become four gluons.

This process creates intricate patterns in the detectors of the LHC, which researchers then map. Then they try to figure out the mathematical formula to describe the outcome and develop predictions to compare to the results of further experiments.

A particular type of scattering process, called scattering amplitudes, gives the probability of possible outcomes of particle collisions. So using the previous example, the scattering amplitude would tell us the probability of two gluon particles becoming four gluons after a collision or the probability of becoming one gluon and one Higgs particle.