Earlier in May this year, researchers at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) detected the creation of gold nuclei inside the world\u2019s largest atom smasher. The team at the ALICE detector at the LHC, composed of scientists from the University of Kansas (KU), made this detection possible by developing a technique that has been overlooked before.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 17-mile (27 km) long particle accelerator at the French-Swiss border needs no introduction. Designed to safely carry out collisions of particles travelling at high speeds in opposite directions, the LHC has a series of detectors that take in data to understand the aftermath of these collisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Large Ion Collider Experiment (ALICE) is one of the four big detectors at the LHC and has played a significant role in the detection of the Higgs Boson, which is a critical component of the Standard Model of physics. <\/p>\n
While much of the attention during the experiments is focused on studying the aftermath of the collisions, there are also instances when particles do not collide. This is precisely what the scientists at the University of Kansas were interested in and is referred to as ultra-peripheral collisions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ultra-peripheral collisions<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually in collider experiments, we make the particles crash into each other to produce lots of debris,\u201d explained Daniel Tapia Takaki, a professor of physics at KU\u2019s group at ALICE.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in ultra-peripheral collisions (UPCs), we\u2019re interested in what happens when the particles don\u2019t hit each other. These are near misses. The ions pass close enough to interact \u2014 but without touching. There\u2019s no physical overlap.\u201d<\/p>\n