- Sparticle
"Sparticle" is a merging of the words supersymmetric and particle. Supersymmetry, one of the cutting-edge theories in current
high-energy physics , predicts the existence of these "shadow" particles. According to the theory, when the more familiarlepton s,photon s, andquark s were produced in theBig Bang , each one was accompanied by a matching "sparticle":slepton s,photino s andsquark s. This state of affairs occurred at a time when theuniverse was undergoing rapidphase change , and theorists believe this state of affairs lasted only some ten trillionth of a ten trillionth of ananosecond (10-35 seconds) before the particles we see now "condensed" out and froze into space-time. Sparticles have not existed naturally since that time.However, if this theory is correct, it should be possible to recreate these particles in high-energy
particle accelerator s. Doing so will not be an easy task; these particles may have masses up to a thousand times greater than their corresponding "real" particles. Until recently, colliders did not have the power to create these supermassive particles, but the newly builtLarge Hadron Collider atCERN inSwitzerland andFrance will be able to achieve collisions in the 14 TeV (tera-electron-volt) range, which is more than adequate to determine if these superpartner particles exist.The tentative proposal is that certain gravitino of sudden spontaneous superpartners could appear and pollinate at Planck wavelength. (Cumrun Vafa)
ee also
*
Neutralino
*Chargino
*Gravitino
*Gluino
*Graviton
*Sfermion External links
* [http://www.anl.gov/OPA/Frontiers2000/b5excell.html Argonne National Laboratory]
* [https://edms.cern.ch/cedar/plsql/cedarw.site_home Large Hadron Collider]
* [http://public.web.cern.ch/public/ CERN homepage]
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