[News-releases] News-Release : ATLAS Scientists catch glimpse of the Primordial Universe

[Marcello Pavan]

TRIUMF and ATLAS-Canada

News Release | For Immediate Release | November 26, 2010

ATLAS Scientists catch glimpse of the Primordial Universe
---------------------------------------------------------

(Vancouver, BC) -- After less than three weeks of colliding lead ions at
the highest energies ever achieved, scientists at the LHC laboratory in
Geneva, Switzerland, already have brought new insight into the universe
as it existed immediately after the Big Bang. Temperatures at the  
collision
point reached trillions of degrees, about the temperature that the lead
nuclei would literally melt into a "soup" of its basic building blocks.
Indeed, scientists of the ATLAS collaboration are the first ever to  
observe
direct evidence of "jets" of particles as they pass through this hot,
primordial soup.  Detector technology developed in Canada was critical  
to
this success. The ATLAS paper was accepted by the prestigious journal
Physical Review Letters a few hours after submission.

This result highlights the discovery potential of the LHC and the giant
ATLAS detector.   The accelerator is operating at half energy and a  
fraction
of the design intensity as scientists and engineers are methodically  
increase
its capabilities, yet ground-breaking results are already starting to  
appear.
This direct observation of so-called "jet quenching" may be the  
strongest
evidence yet of formation of a "quark-gluon" plasma, predicted by  
theorists
to have existed about a billionth of a second after the Big Bang.  
Scientists
now have another avenue to study this ultra-exotic form of matter.

Canadian-built detectors called "forward calorimeters" were  
instrumental to
this observation.  These particle detectors need to operate in the most
intense interactions hot-spots near the LHC collision points, and took  
years
to develop, test and install into ATLAS.

"This breakthrough is a testament to the great success of the Canadian
detectors built for ATLAS", said Robert McPherson from the University of
Victoria and Institute of Particle Physics, Spokesperson of the ATLAS- 
Canada
collaboration. "The Carleton University and University of Toronto  
groups who
led the forward calorimeter construction effort in Canada are to be
particularly congratulated for this great success."

"The Forward Calorimeter is an innovative detector designed to measure
extremely energetic jets of collision products emerging in the  
direction of
the colliding particles." added Robert Orr from the University of  
Toronto,
leader of the Toronto calorimeter construction effort. "It was purpose  
built
(as a Canada-US collaboration) to survive in the hostile environment  
close
to the intense LHC beams."

"Data from the Forward Calorimeters were used to select events for this
analysis", said Gerald Oakham from Carleton University and TRIUMF,  
leader
of the Carleton calorimeter team. "It is gratifying to see that the
Canadian-built components have been critical to the production of this
physics result."

The ATLAS measurement heralds a new era in the use of jets to probe the
quark-gluon plasma. Future jet quenching and other measurements from the
LHC experiments will provide powerful insight into the properties of the
primordial plasma and the interactions among its quarks and gluons. With
data taking continuing for one more week, and the LHC already having
delivered the programmed amount of data for 2010, the heavy-ion  
community
at the LHC is looking forward to further analysis of their data, which  
will
greatly contribute to the emergence of a more complete model of quark- 
gluon
plasma, and consequently the very early Universe.

                                   ###

TRIUMF Contact
--------------
Dr. Marcello Pavan
Outreach coordinator
Tel: 604.222.7525
Email: outreach at triumf.ca

LHC and ATLAS CANADA
--------------------
Prof. Robert McPherson
ATLAS-Canada Spokesperson
University of Victoria / IPP
Phone: + 1 604 222 7654
rmcphers at uvic.ca

Prof. Peter Krieger
ATLAS-Canada Deputy
University of Toronto
Phone: +1 416 978 2950
krieger at physics.utoronto.ca
University of Toronto

Prof. Robert Orr
University of Toronto
Phone: + 1 416 978 6029
E-mail: orr at physics.utoronto.ca

Carleton University
---------------
Prof. Gerald Oakham
Carleton University
+1 613 520 2600 Ext. 7539
oakham at physics.carleton.ca

FOR EDITORS:
-----------
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's  
leading
laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At
present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech
Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy,
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden,  
Switzerland
and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation,  
the
United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO  
have
Observer status. Canada has made important contributions to CERN's  
flagship
accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider and one of its associated  
particle
physics detectors, the ATLAS experiment.
See http://cern.ch.

The Large Hadron Collider or LHC is a particle accelerator which, at 27
kilometres in circumference, is the world's largest and most complex
scientific instrument. The LHC is the world's most powerful particle
accelerator, producing beams seven times more energetic than any  
previous
machine, and around 30 times more intense when it reaches design  
performance,
probably by 2013. It relies on technologies that would not have been  
possible
30 years ago. The LHC is, in a sense, its own prototype.

ATLAS is a worldwide collaboration comprising over 2500 scientists and
engineers from 178 institutions in 35 countries and regions. These are
Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, China,
Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary,  
Israel,
Italy, Japan, Morocco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania,  
Russia,
Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey,
United Kingdom and the United States of America.

ATLAS-Canada comprises about 150 faculty members, post-doctoral  
fellows and
students from eleven Canadian institutes: the University of Alberta,
University of British Columbia, Carleton University, McGill University,
Universite de Montreal, University of Regina, Simon Fraser University,
University of Toronto, TRIUMF, University of Victoria and York  
University.
See http://www.atlas-canada.ca

TRIUMF is Canada's national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics.
Located on the south campus of the University of British Columbia,  
TRIUMF
is owned and operated as a joint venture by a consortium of the  
following
Canadian universities, via a contribution through the National Research
Council Canada: University of Alberta, University of British Columbia,
University of Calgary, Carleton University, University of Guelph,
University of Manitoba, McMaster University, Universite de Montreal,
Queen's University, University of Regina, Saint Mary's University, Simon
Fraser University, University of Toronto, University of Victoria, York
University.



-------------------------------
Marcello M. Pavan, Ph.D.
TRIUMF
4004 Wesbrook Mall
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 2A3
Canada

Tel: 1.604.222.7525
Fax: 1.604.222.1074




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