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Timelapse of the STAR detector being rolled from it's normal spot in the interaction hall of RHIC to the assembly building to undergo maintenance.
The RHIC & ATLAS Computing Facility (RACF) at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory sits at the center of a global computing network. It connects more than 2,500 researchers around the world with the data generated by millions of particle collisions taking place each second at Brookhaven Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC, a DOE Office of Science User Facility for nuclear physics research), and the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. Watch this video to learn how the people and computing resources of the RACF serve these scientists to turn petabytes of raw data into physics discoveries.
During the 508th Brookhaven Lecture, Dennis Perepelitsa introduces his hypothesis that protons with most of their energy concentrated in single quarks or gluons are particularly small and shaped differently too. He then describes his analysis of data from particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider to test his hypothesis.
You don't need a time machine to marvel at the hot broth of quarks and gluons that made up all matter a microsecond after the Big Bang. You just need a ticket on the Long Island Railroad. Through massive feats of engineering, Brookhaven National Laboratory has devised a recipe for cooking up tiny ephemeral batches of this quark-gluon soup, a fluid which physicists Paul Sorensen say is the most "perfect" fluid ever discovered.
If you want to know how the universe works, part of the answer lies in understanding the building blocks of matter—before they became inextricably bound within the protons, neutrons, and atoms that make up everything visible in our universe today.
During the 496th Brookhaven Lecture, Lijuan Ruan explained how she uses electron-positron tomography from quark-antiquark annihilations to study chiral symmetry, a characteristic that "broke" to form 99 percent of the visible mass in the universe and is thought to be restored during ion collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.
During the 2014 Sambamurti Lecture, physicist Anne Sickles discussed how correlations between particles created during collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are being used to determine the properties of matter itself. She also explained how physicists, including those using the PHENIX detector at RHIC, are exploring the geometry of the nuclei's impact zones to determine just how small quark-gluon plasma can be.
During the 493rd Brookhaven Lecture, Anne Sickles discussed how physicists determine what happens before, during, and after individual particle collisions among billions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). She then explained how collisions at RHIC enable physicists to probe deeper into the mysteries of quark-gluon plasma and the strong force.
During the 490th Brookhaven Lecture, Bjoern Schenke discussed theory that details the shape and structure of heavy ion collisions. He also explained how this theory and data from experiments at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider are being used to determine properties of quark-gluon plasma.
Physicists and engineers in Brookhaven National Laboratory's Superconducting Magnet Division are in the final stages of assembling "replacement" magnets for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Europe's CERN laboratory.
Particle physicists dedicate their lives to understanding the fundamental nature of energy, matter, space and time. Why do they do it? Symmetry magazine asked some of them to explain: Why does particle physics matter?
Visit PHENIX and STAR, two detector experiments bigger than a house. Featured Interviews: Nora Detweiler, Brant Johnson, Paul Sorensen, Guillaume Robert-Demolaize, and Gene Van Buren.
In the 488th Brookhaven Lecture, Luo discusses some collider fundamentals. He then introduces the electron lens system he helped develop at Brookhaven, explaining how it could help double the collision rate at RHIC and prepare the machine for future endeavors.
A discussion of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider by the Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear and Particle Physics Berndt Mueller.
John Smedley gives the 482nd Brookhaven Lecture, titled, "Diamond, An X-ray's Best Friend." He discusses his work as a member of a team in the Instrumentation Division that found that diamonds fit the bill for new components in cutting-edge tools being designed for upgrades for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), future linear-accelerator light sources, the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), and NSLS-II — facilities that researchers from around the world are using to understand more about how the natural world works and how we can solve the nation's energy challenges, too.
In this 481st Brookhaven Lecture, Vladimir Litvinenko describes the cutting-edge developments accelerator physicists are planning along the path to new, exciting science at RHIC. He explains new techniques, including coherent electron cooling, generating a high-current, polarized electron beam, and ways of suppressing a myriad of potential instabilities.
Physicist Paul Sorensen describes discoveries made at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), a particle accelerator at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. At RHIC, scientists from around the world study what the universe may have looked like in the first microseconds after its birth, helping us to understand more about why the physical world works the way it does -- from the smallest particles to the largest stars.
On December 5, 2011, the PHENIX collaboration celebrated its 20th anniversary at a symposium, which began with some speakers’ recollections of early challenges and struggles in getting PHENIX approved, designed, and built. The speakers continued their talks with recounts of the many successes that occurred during the first 11 years of operations at RHIC, and ended with predictions of continued success for both RHIC and PHENIX in the next decade.
Physicist Michiko Minty explains how bunches of particles traveling in opposite directions in each of the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider’s (RHIC) two superconducting rings are guided, focused, and accelerated to nearly the speed of light and then made to collide. She describes how to ensure the highest possible collision rates by establishing head-on collisions between the two-foot-long bunches which, at the interaction points, are a width comparable to a human hair.
Modern, compact ion injector will feed new kinds of particles to RHIC and NSRL.
The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC, http://www.bnl.gov/rhic ) is a 2.4-mile-circumference particle accelerator/collider that has been operating at Brookhaven Lab since 2000, delivering collisions of heavy ions, protons, and other particles to an international team of physicists investigating the basic structure and fundamental forces of matter. In 2005, RHIC physicists announced that the matter created in RHICs most energetic collisions behaves like a nearly perfect liquid in that it has extraordinarily low viscosity, or resistance to flow. Since then, the scientists have been taking a closer look at this remarkable form of matter, which last existed some 13 billion years ago, a mere fraction of a second after the Big Bang. Scientists have revelaed new findings, including the first measurement of temperature very early in the collision events, and their implications for the nature of this early-universe matter.
A celebration of the contribution that Renaissance Technologies, Inc., made to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, during which the entire Lab community participated in a series of RHIC Renaissance events, beginning with the Roads to Discovery ceremony, followed by a 1.8-mile 'Collide the Ions' walk for autism research around the newly re-dedicated RHIC Ring Road. The days activities also include talks preceding and following the walk.
'Collide the Ions' walkers dressed in blue and yellow T-shirts walked around Brookhaven Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider ring road in opposite directions. Halfway around the ring, the walkers symbolically "collided."
Physicist Peter Steinberg explains the nature of the quark gluon plasma (QGP), a new state of matter produced at Brookhaven Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).
Physicist Peter Steinberg explains what happens when atomic nucleii travelling at close to the speed of light smash together in Brookhaven Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).
Physicist Peter Steinberg explains that fundamental particles like protons are themselves made up of still smaller particles called quarks. He discusses how new particles are produced when quarks are liberated from protons...a process that can be observed in Brookhaven Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC).
An animation that follows polarized protons as they travel through the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) accelerator complex to the experiments. The arrows indicate the direction of each proton's spin. The animation concludes with a fly-by of the RHIC experiments running during the spin program.
Physicist Tim Hallman discusses the properties of the "perfect" liquid and plans for luminosity and detector upgrades to the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.
Brookhaven National Lab has successfully developed a new pre-injector system, called the Electron Beam Ion Source, for the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and NASA Space Radiation Laboratory science programs. The first of several planned improvements to the RHIC facility, EBIS will help transform RHIC into the Quantum Chromo Dynamics Lab that will enable the study of QCD in more detail.
To investigate a new form of matter not seen since the Big Bang, scientists are using a new experimental probe: collisions between two beams of copper ions. The use of intermediate size nuclei is expected to result in intermediate energy density - not as high as in earlier runs colliding two beams of gold ions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), but more than was produced by colliding a beam of gold ions with much lighter deuterons.
Physicists working at the Brookhaven National Lab's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) are exploring the puzzle of proton spin as they begin taking data during the 2009 RHIC run. For the first time, RHIC is running at a record energy of 500 giga-electron volts (GeV) per collision, more than double the previous runs in which polarized proton beams collided at 200 GeV. Narrarated by RHIC run coordinator Mei Bai.
Evidence to date suggests that gold-gold collisions the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven are indeed creating a new state of hot, dense matter, but one quite different and even more remarkable than had been predicted. Instead of behaving like a gas of free quarks and gluons, as was expected, the matter created in RHIC's heavy ion collisions appears to be more like a "perfect" liquid.
A guided tour of Brookhaven's Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) conducted by past Laboratory Director John Marburger. RHIC is a world-class scientific research facility that began operation in 2000, following 10 years of development and construction. Hundreds of physicists from around the world use RHIC to study what the universe may have looked like in the first few moments after its creation. RHIC drives two intersecting beams of gold ions head-on, in a subatomic collision. What physicists learn from these collisions may help us understand more about why the physical world works the way it does, from the smallest subatomic particles, to the largest stars.
Missed the virtual Summer Sundays series? Check out the replays for scientist Q&As and video tours of NSLS-II, CFN, and RHIC.
Jefferson Lab and Brookhaven National Lab partner on a Software & Computing Round Table to track the leading edge of computing and foster collaboration
One-of-a-kind future research facility will peer into the building blocks of visible matter and unlock the secrets of the strongest force in nature.
Tracking particles containing charm quarks at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider offers insight into how quarks combine
A new result from the RHICf experiment, which is exploring details of asymmetries observed in polarized proton collisions at RHIC, adds to the puzzling story of what causes “transverse spin asymmetry”
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