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Scientists have recorded signals from the “zeptverse,” a fictitious world on a scale 100 times smaller than the size of an atom. They believe that this discovery could help develop a new, more complete theory of the structure of the Universe.
(This is an adapted translation of material from BBC correspondents. The original in English can be read here).
The discovery was made by researchers from Cambridge who conducted an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. This giant facility at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), on the border of Switzerland and France, smashes atoms together to split them and reveal what's inside.
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Knock on the door of the “Zeptverse”
Dark matter makes up a significant part of our cosmos, but researchers have so far been unable to detect it.
Its existence is known due to the fact that its gravitational force affects ordinary matter, but in all other respects it remains completely invisible.
During the next experiment, particles collided with each other, possessing high energy, and the researchers studied the products of these collisions - a kind of “fragments” scattering in different directions.
One of these “fragments,” the b quark (also called the “pretty quark”)—a subatomic particle, that is, a particle smaller than an atom—is unstable and lasts only one and a half trillionths of a second before decaying into other forms of matter.
Despite such a short lifetime, the researchers were able to record its interactions with other tiny particles on scales on the order of a zeptometer, that is, one sextillionth of a meter (10⁻²¹ meter). It was thanks to this number that the term Zeptoverse, “Zeptoverse,” appeared.
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Some theories suggest that at these scales, particles are more sensitive to dark matter, which can influence how quarks interact and decay. Thus, observing the processes in this microcosm can help scientists discover dark matter.
“We are knocking on the door of this zept universe,” said Dr Harry Cliffe of the University of Cambridge, who led the data analysis. He told the BBC that this subatomic "dance" allowed researchers to observe in detail the behavior of particles that may be completely new to science.
“Now we want to start researching to find out what new particles are hiding there. And to do that we need more data,” Cliff adds.
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The 28 countries participating in the project have agreed to upgrade the LHCb detector at the Large Hadron Collider. This will cost about $300 million and will increase the frequency of detected particle decays tenfold.
“With it, we can look into the Zeptverse and find out what is hiding there,” says Cliff.
But last year, UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), the government body responsible for funding scientific research, announced it was withdrawing its share of the funds earmarked for the planned upgrade.
Later this summer, the agency announced funding cuts to a number of other particle physics and astronomy projects, including the famed Lovell Radio Telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory.
And although the study in question was led by scientists from Cambridge, full UK participation in the project was in question, says Tim Gershon, head of international collaboration at LHCb.
"There is a risk that the UK will remain on the sidelines and miss out on the opportunity to make really important discoveries," he told the BBC. “But the biggest long-term impact, I think, is that the UK will not benefit from educating the young people who are really our greatest asset.”
Among these young scientists is Dr. Mary Richardson-Slipper, part of the team that discovered the “Zeptverse.” Due to cuts in physics funding, she is revising her plans for the future.
“I love living in the UK, but I'm looking for work abroad because I think there are more opportunities there now,” she admits.
She added that many of her colleagues involved in fundamental physics have already left the country.
These funding cuts come despite a record overall increase in the budget allocated to science.
Professor Brian Cox, a broadcaster and particle physics researcher at the University of Manchester who was not part of the research team, said the result was significant.
He is unhappy with the reduction in British funding for the CERN project.
“It would be extremely strange to abandon Britain's leading position in science now - it would be detrimental to future research programs and would seriously undermine our hard-won international reputation,” Cox said.
UK Research and Innovation emphasizes that the UK remains a full participant in CERN and the second largest donor with an annual contribution of about 175 million pounds sterling (about 235 million dollars).
“We sought independent expertise and selected a promising portfolio of new infrastructure projects, including initiatives in areas such as clean energy, medical imaging and cultural heritage. However, as often happens, there were more applications for funding than we could support,” an agency representative explained in a comment to the BBC.
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