Chapter 169: Good Luck!

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

Yan Xinjue was right. After the experiment started, the emitted particle beam was stable below 5GeV. The signals captured by the ATLAS were concentrated only between 1GeV – 10GeV.

Occasionally, a dot appeared outside of the 10GeV range, but they would not deviate far.

Naturally, no data from 750 GeV was produced.

However, Lu Zhou was still unconvinced.

The experiment lasted for a whole day.

Around 12 o’clock in the morning, there was a cheer in the CERN headquarters.

From the data received from various detectors, the pentaquark confidence level exceeded five-sigma. This meant that the “discovery” had been made!

Even though everyone was expecting this, people were still excited.

Generally speaking, the quark divided in the collider was either a “quark-antiquark” pair similar to K meson and π meson or a “three quark state” composed of protons and neutrons. As for the single quark state, since the quark was bound by the strong force of the color charge, the single quark state particle was not allowed to exist.

However, quantum chromodynamics did not prohibit the existence of singular states such as “tetraquark” and “pentaquark”.

Over the years, major particle physics laboratories had been searching for those “singular states”.

If these guys were not found, it might prove a loophole in the standard model. Thus, quantum chromodynamics might not be correct.

However, once these singular states were discovered, the entire theoretical physics community would be in great relief!

After the second day of the experiment, CERN invited reporters and held a high-profile press conference.

In front of the media reporters, CERN’s spokesperson announced the news in an excited tone.

“... We have succeeded in discovering the pentaquark particle. This is another great victory for the standard model!”

Unsurprisingly, the discovery of the pentaquark would be the most significant pentaquark research result of the year.

The CERN conference ended in the midst of the applause. This was followed by numerous articles on the research discovery.

However, for the physicist, the real work had only just begun.

In order to better reveal the physical properties of the pentaquark particles, the LHCb International Cooperation Group assigned tasks to researchers in various countries to perform a full-spectrum analysis on the newly discovered particles.

Professor Lu Shenjian was also involved in this work.

However, this task was not as time intensive as the B1 data calculations.

Later, Lu Zhou heard from Yan Xinjue that this task was different than the others. Every “full spectrum analysis” paper would be signed by all of the researchers.

Too many co-authors would weaken the content of the thesis.

Lu Zhou sat in the hotel’s conference room and chatted with Yan Xinjue while he wrote on an A4 paper.

“Thousands of signatures... My name won’t even be seen. This is so de-motivating.”

“That’s how it is working for CERN. That’s why I don’t recommend you to work here. Not even one can win a Nobel Prize...” said Yan Xinjue. He yawned and placed the pen down before asking, “Do do you want to play billiards tonight?”

Lu Zhou thought before shaking his head, “No thanks, I’m good. I still have to go to Professor Grayer’s office.”

historical

Last time after the experiment, Professor Grayer promised that he would take the time to help Lu Zhou sort out the experiment data.

Just now, Lu Zhou received an email from Professor Grayer, saying that the data had been sorted out and to go to his office with a USB.

It would not take that long to copy the data, but Lu Zhou wanted to analyze the data on the same night.

After all, he had to help with Professor Lu’s project during the day. He was only free during weekends and evenings.

Yan Xinjue knew what Lu Zhou was going to do and he said, “Don’t tell me it’s about that thing.”

Lu Zhou, “You guessed it.”

Yan Xinjue had a defeated look as he sighed and said, “Fine, I admire your commitment but you do know that you’re doing useless work, right?”

Lu Zhou smiled and asked, “How do you know it is useless without doing the work?”

Lu Zhou was like this. He was stubborn in both mathematics and physics.

At the moment, he was very interested in the 750 GeV characteristic peak.

Although Yan Xinjue and Professor Grayer both conveyed that the peak was probably nothing more than a two-photon signal and it would be ridiculous for a particle to carry that amount of energy, Lu Zhou disagreed.

750 GeV did seem a little heavy, but it was still possible.

Lu Zhou believed that investigating the frontiers of any discipline required imagination.

Even though the two quantum chromodynamics experts tried to persuade him, that was of no use for Lu Zhou.

How did quantum chromodynamics develop?

Was it not developed by subverting from “common sense”?

It did not matter if Lu Zhou was wrong since failing was part of success.

After dinner, Lu Zhou walked to the R2 ¹ building. Professor Grayer was waiting for him in his office.

“The data that you wanted is in this USB, including the data from the CMS detectors. Honestly, this data is pretty useless. We only did the tests for an hour, so this thing has no useful experimental results.”

Lu Zhou, “Thanks... I just want to satisfy my curiosity. I’ll still try.”

“Curious?” said Professor Grayer. He smiled and gave him a look of encouragement as he said, “Then I wish you good luck.”