Great Country Academician

Xu Chuan is not clear about the mentor's plight for the time being, and he has no time to help others.

Because his own proton collision experiment is about to begin.

The ten-day preparation time is not long. Although CERN does not require him to personally operate the proton accelerator to conduct experiments, he needs to analyze the data obtained after the experiment is completed.

The data generated by each operation of the proton accelerator is quite huge.

So Xu Chuan needs a team to assist him in completing this task.

For this reason, he is constantly looking for someone to help these days.

Originally, senior brother Qi Xishao was a very good choice, but unfortunately, he has already joined Chen Zhengping's team.

Seems to be working now.

After thinking for a while, Xu Chuan called senior brother Lin Fenglin who was far away in Princeton.

He didn't know many people, except Lin Feng, who was also a student of Wei Teng and Chen Zhengping.

No way, who told him not to follow the development process of a normal person.

When other people join CERN for the first time, they usually enter as interns, and when they have jobs, they also join the team as a part of the whole team.

This experience for a period of time, can get to know a lot of people.

And he directly presided over a project when he came up, although for CERN, this is only a small project.

But no matter how small the project is, experiments in the high-energy physics area still require manpower.

His mentor, Wei Teng, is not very responsible, and it may be that this project is nothing in Wei Teng's eyes, or he wants to train him.

So after just applying for and arranging the collision experiment for him, he let it go.

The rest of the data analysis, press conference and other work were all left to him.

Just tell him to let him know when the experiment is done.

So Xu Chuan had to complete the experiment by himself from beginning to end.

After inviting Brother Lin Feng, Xu Chuan frowned and thought about who else he could invite to help him complete this project.

But after thinking for a long time, he couldn't find any suitable candidates.

From his rebirth to now, he doesn't know many people, it can even be said that there are very few people.

No way, the time is too short, he doesn't have enough journey to meet more students who are the same age as him.

Although there are many students in Nantah University, and he knows quite a few from both the Department of Mathematics and the Department of Physics, it is a pity that these students do not have enough ability to participate in this kind of experiment.

Needless to say, Princeton, during the two months he joined Princeton, he was basically perfecting the calculation method of the mystery of the proton radius, and he had not had time to meet any new friends.

Unable to find enough candidates on his side, Xu Chuan turned his ideas to the CERN organization.

CERN lacks everything except people.

This is the world's largest high-energy physics research institution. During the normal operation of the LHC, at least 5,000 people work here every day.

Excluding the 5,000 people, there are more than average engineers and chores, and there are still more than 2,000 physicists.

And physicists who can work at CERN, even if they are just interns, also have doctoral or above knowledge.

At least, don't worry about their lack of ability.

After seeking advice from his mentor Wei Teng, Xu Chuan posted a recruitment announcement to the entire CERN.

The mystery of the proton radius is a hot research direction in today's particle physics community. After the announcement was posted, within a day, he received applications from all over the world in his mailbox.

Of course, those who apply to participate in this project are basically CERN interns, both short-term and long-term interns.

Some may be to enrich their own research experience and learn some new knowledge, while others may be for their graduation thesis.

Compared with formal researchers who basically have their own tasks, these interns have a much higher degree of freedom.

Especially for those long-term interns, except for the experimental tasks of their own schools or organizations, they spend a lot of time idle, and they are looking for their own opportunities in CERN.

Just like Xu Chuan's experiment, many times, teams from all over the world need some "temporary workers" to help them complete some data analysis or other basic work.

These are great exercise opportunities for interns.

Although these applicants were good and bad, in any case, Xu Chuan was able to meet the needs of the team.

All that's left is to pick and choose.

After all, not everyone is suitable.

After a day of screening, Xu Chuan finally selected three people from the mailbox.

Interns Athol Murphy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jonah Krill from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, and Nunnally Kessler from the University of Göttingen.

Among the many applications in the mailbox, the resumes of these three people are the most outstanding and outstanding, and the top among them is Nunnally Kessler from the University of Göttingen.

This is a girl, majoring in particle physics, who has been an intern at CERN for a year, and participated in the analysis and discovery of pentaquark particles in 2015.

If there are no accidents, she will become a full-fledged researcher at CERN next year.

Together with himself and senior brother Lin Feng who came from Princeton, five people from different countries formed a small temporary team.

Fortunately, everyone can speak English, so there is no problem in communicating.

After gathering a group of people together for a meal, intense and orderly work is about to begin.

The day of July 25th will come soon.

CERN staff has prepared accelerated experiments, and they will use the SPS accelerator to complete this experiment.

In this experiment, CERN staff will launch a beam of electrons to hydrogen molecules through the accelerator according to Xu Chuan's request, and measure some electron deflection processes.

This is somewhat different from the previous process of measuring the radius of protons in other laboratories.

Previous scattering experiments used beams of high-energy electrons, which have limited sensitivity to the proton radius and can only be extrapolated to lower-energy electrons to determine the radius, but this time the lower energies used avoid this problem.

And to further improve precision, Xu Chuan asked CERN to inject hydrogen molecules directly into vacuum tubes carrying electron beams, rather than placing the electron beams in metal containers as in many previous experiments.

This means that there will be no electrons hitting the metal during the experiment and interfering with the measurement, greatly improving the accuracy of the measurement.

Thanks to CERN, which has all kinds of advanced equipment, it can complete this task according to the requirements.

Elsewhere, injecting hydrogen molecules directly into vacuum tubes carrying electron beams is a huge hassle.

It would be very troublesome to put such an experiment in other places, but it is just a trivial collision experiment in CERN.

Even Xu Chuan put forward some requirements, CERN engineers successfully completed the collision process according to the requirements.

As for the collected data, it will be processed by CERN's supercomputer first, and will be transferred to CERN's database after the processing is completed.

Then Xu Chuan will apply to use it. This is the overall workflow, which is somewhat similar to the use of public telescopes in the astronomical world.

On the morning of the 27th, Xu Chuan successfully obtained the data of the proton collision experiment from the CERN staff.

Back in the temporary office for the application, the four members of the team were already waiting here.

"Everyone, we have something to do with the experimental data."

Xu Chuan clapped his hands and attracted the attention of several friends.

"Great, let's start early and give protons a precise radius earlier!"

In the office, Ashol Murphy, an MIT intern with long brown hair, grinned.

Xu Chuan smiled and said, "The drawing of the transition map between electronic energy levels will be left to you."

Hearing this, the smile on Athol Murphy's face disappeared immediately, and he wailed: "Oh, no, my dear Xu, you can't bully me like this, you know I'm not good at this."

"Compared to drawing transition maps between electronic energy levels, I am better at analyzing raw data. Leave that to me, and I will satisfy you."

Xu Chuan ignored Athol Murphy and began to arrange work instead.

In fact, he was just joking. It is impossible for him to hand over the mapping of transitions between electronic energy levels to others. This is the core of relationship checking and can only be done by himself.

"Okay, everyone's work has been arranged, let's start working, I believe that these tasks are not difficult for you."

After arranging the work of mathematical analysis, the office became busy immediately.

The calculation of the charge radius data of protons is not a difficult task for the particle physics community, and the predecessors have made countless efforts in this work.

Their work now is more like looking to the future by standing on the shoulders of giants.

The days passed day by day. In the CERN office, Xu Chuan led several recruited partners to work overtime to finish sorting out the experimental data.

In the blink of an eye, the time came to August 5th.

"Xu, look at this, this physical image of the scattering of gravitons and protons seems to be somewhat abnormal."

In the office, Nunnally Kessler from the University of Göttingen called Xu Chuan.

Hearing the voice, Xu Chuan replied without raising his head: "Wait a minute, wait until I finish analyzing the data in hand."

The work in his hands has reached a critical point, and it is impossible to let it go.

After waiting for more than ten minutes, Xu Chuan manipulated the mouse to add a stroke to a half-completed transition map on the screen, and got up after saving it.

"What's the matter, Nunnally?"

Walking to Nunnally Kessler, Xu Chuan asked aloud.

"Look at this, when the electron beam hits the molecular hydrogen cloud, it is excited to the 3S state, and then they decay to the 2P state in 0.16 μs, releasing a detectable 656nm Balmer-alpha photon. This is the same as the usual There are some deviations in the proton radius measurement experiment." In front of the computer, Nunnally Kessler pointed to a series of energy spectrum images on the display screen.

Hearing this, Xu Chuan looked over curiously.

Following the direction of Nunnally Kessler's finger, he really saw the abnormal data.

"Interestingly, from this data, the influence of the electron beam on the molecular hydrogen cloud seems to be smaller than in previous experiments, which means that the radius of the proton may be smaller than 0.84184 femtometer."

Staring at the image on the screen, Xu Chuan's eyes flashed a stream of light.

For him, the secrets contained in this kind of image that ordinary people can't understand are like the emperor's new clothes, naked in front of him.

After thinking about it for a while, Xu Chuan said, "Nuna Li, complete the analysis of this data as soon as possible, maybe we will get a brand new, smaller proton radius."

On the side, after hearing Xu Chuan's words, Nunnally Kessler froze for a moment, and asked in surprise, "Smaller proton radius? Is this possible?"

Xu Chuan smiled and said: "Nothing is impossible. Before the calculation of the radius of the proton is completed through the first principles, it is normal to announce that the radius of the proton is below 0.8 decimeters."

"After all, we know too little about particles at the microscopic level, don't we?"

Hearing this, Nunnally Kessler's breathing suddenly became short of breath.

If they found a smaller proton radius data in this experiment, it means that they can leave a name in the history of particle physics.

Even if this data may not be the final accurate data.

Anyway, in the current physics world, there is no precise and definite value for the charge radius of the proton.

A smaller proton radius data may be obtained, which seems to have given the five-member team a shot of chicken blood.

It can be said that they worked overtime before, and now they will devote all their time except eating and sleeping to data analysis.

With the support of this fiery state, finally, on August 11th, Xu Chuan completed the drawing of the final transition map between electronic energy levels, and calculated the proton radius measured in this experiment.

[The radius of the proton is Rp to detect the shape factor of the energy-kinetic tensor through the scattering of gravitons and protons, and bring in some new formulas of the properties of electrons and protons and their physical meaning Energy-to-charge ratio formula: mC/q=1/2εEds∫. =1/24πrεEr/4πrεE]

[It can be obtained that the detailed data of the circular motion associated with de Broglie waves, that is, the second-level spin motion is: 0.831×10-15m±0.0016fm. 】

At the desk, Xu Chuan completed the final calculation and obtained a brand new proton radius data.

0.831×10-15m±0.0016fm.

An all-time low proton charge radius.

It is far lower than the previous 0.879±0.011 fm femtometer determined by the International Scientific and Technical Data Committee in the physical world, and also lower than the 0.84184±0.00067 fm measured by the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics.

"How much is the data?"

"Has the radius of the proton been calculated?"

At the desk, after Xu Chuan finished the calculation, several other friends came over and asked nervously.

Xu Chuan picked up the manuscript paper of the calculation from the table and handed it over, and several friends behind him snatched it up.

"0.831 femtometer!"

"A new radius, we discover a new history!"

"It's unbelievable that the radius of the proton can be reduced even further. If we didn't obtain this data personally, I would definitely scoff at it."

Seeing the answer on the manuscript paper, cheers erupted in the office.

For these CERN interns, nothing could be more exciting than this, this is a great discovery.

Whether or not this data will prove to be correct in the future, there is no doubt that they will be central figures in the particle physics community in the present.