2019-06-01_All_About_Space

ggy

in the instant of the Big Bang itself before rapidly

separating in the era of cosmic inflation.

If this hypothesis is correct then the electroweak

and strong interactions are close cousins, and the

idea of a similar link between the f lavon and the

axion shouldn’t seem so far-fetched – could they

indeed be different present-day manifestations of a

single particle, the axif lavon?

That’s the idea now being proposed by a number

of physicists. A key breakthrough came in late-2016

when Lorenzo Calibbi of the Chinese Academy o

Sciences in Beijing, Florian Goertz of the MPI and

others around the world published a number of

papers investigating it. Calibbi and Goertz pointe

out how one component of the proposed f lavon

field has properties that match those expected

of the axion. “We found that the f lavon and

the axion could be realised together as two

components of a single ‘complex’ scalar field,”

explains Goertz. Put simply, a scalar field is one

that is defined by a single number, effectively its

strength, at any point in space.

p[

hypothesis] very economically solves some major

problems in physics such as the f lavour puzzle,

strong CP problem and dark matter. It also leads to a

very predictive set-up since, for example, the axion

now inherits properties from the f lavon.”

In a nutshell, that means that a combined

axif lavon has the potential to solve other big

problems in 21st-century physics, beyond the

issues of quark mass and strong CP. Cosmologists

structure of

today’s galaxy

superclusters

• but an
  early burst
  of cosmic
  inflation is
  needed to
  produce such
  a pattern
  016
  of
  d

d

evidence of electromagnetism and the weak

interaction behavingasasingle‘electroweak’

force. In fact, mostphysicistsbelievethatallfour

fundamentalforces – electromagnetism, the weak

andstronginteractionsandgravity–wereunified

Ofcourse, there’s no shortageofhypothetical

ideas at the speculative end of theoreticalphysics,

but Calibbi and Goertz’s idea caught the imagination

ofphysicists around the world more than most,

for reasons Goertz explains: “This[axiflavon

Below:The

distribution

of matter seen

intheCMB

echoesthe

Magnet

ATLAS' magnets are able to bend

thepathofchargedparticlesto

get the momentum.

HCAL
The Hadron Calorimeter
worksouttheenergyof
hadrons, particles made
of quarks and gluons.

AT L A S

Spectrometer
ATLAS owns a
spectrometer that
allows it to work out the
momentum of muons.

Calorimeters

The purpose of the

calorimeters is to

measure the energy

from particles.

Inner detector
This detector's basic
function is to track
charged particles by
keepingacloseeyeon
their interaction with
materials inside ATLAS.

Solving the universe