Physics Buzz

While visitors and locals flock to Vancouver’s parks for a taste of the region’s famous untamed beauty, at TRIUMF labs another kind of natural exploration is taking place. Nestled among three green spaces, the enormous particle accelerator center might seem a little out of place with its twelve and a half acres of research buildings and radiation warnings. Yet the researchers at TRIUMF work tirelessly to coax some of nature’s deepest secrets out of normally untalkative particles: neutrons.

Studying decay might seem like a job for the biologists, but not so when it comes to particles. The strange, but common process through which particles decay, or change from one type into two or more other types, is fundamental to the way the universe works. After a year-long experiment and analyzing terabytes of data, a team of scientists has just published in Physical Review Letters the first precise measurements of one of the byproducts of the decay of a neutron—light. This photo of the RDK II experiment was taken looking in the direction of the neutron beam source. The three rectangles in the center are detectors for the lowest-energy photons. Image Credit:  Herbert Breuer.