Strange Charm

I started my internship! I'm working on particle physics research with Dr. Bellis at Siena College. In our first meeting, he introduced me to programming and basic particle physics concepts, and we talked briefly about what project I'll be working on.

From 1999 to 2008, the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford conducted the BaBar experiment, which involved hundreds of researchers using the BaBar detector, a multilayer particle detector, to study the difference or disparity between the matter and antimatter content in the universe. The experiment is no longer running, but there are years of data that have yet to be analyzed. My job is to run a code on Python that analyzes a very specific section of the data to determine whether or not it is worth further analysis. In particular, I am searching for evidence of a new type of particle called an exotic meson, which has already been predicted to exist.

Dr. Bellis started off by explaining some basics of particle physics to me. I have always thought that protons, neutrons, and electrons are the simplest parts of matter, but I learned that there is actually an elementary particle called a quark, which is a fundamental constituent of matter (it serves as a "building block" for matter). Quarks, which are never found in isolation, make up composite particles called hadrons, which include protons and neutrons. Antiparticles of quarks are called antiquarks, and they have the same general properties of quarks except their charges have the opposite sign.

Here's a really funny song explaining quarks (Thanks, Helen!): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0kXkWXSXRA

The song title "Strange Charm" comes from the six different flavors (types) of quarks: up, down, strange, charm, top, and bottom. Fun fact: top and bottom were previously called truth and beauty before the scientists started to think those names were too poetic. 

The particular type of particle that I'll be studying is a meson, which is a hadronic subatomic particle composed of one quark and one antiquark, bound together by the strong interaction force. All mesons are unstable, and charged mesons decay (sometimes through intermediate particles) to form electrons or neutrinos. Mesons are not produced by radioactive decay, but instead appear in nature only as short-lived products of very high-energy interactions in matter, between particles composed of quarks.

Dr. Bellis also introduced me to Python, the programming language that I'll be using to run my code. I'll be using a fantastic website called codeacademy.com to learn Python. I already started the online course, and it's very straightforward and easy to navigate. Hopefully, I'll soon be able to start writing the code!