Pitt scientists might have hand in explaining formation of the universe

Pitt professor Joe Boudreau might one day be able to explain how the universe formed and why… Pitt professor Joe Boudreau might one day be able to explain how the universe formed and why matter has mass.

Boudreau has been working on the Large Hadron Collider, a machine that broke a world record Monday for accelerating particles faster than any man-made device has ever done before.

The collider, a project on which universities from acround the world are participating, is a particle supercollider located near Geneva. The collider itself consists of a large, tubular device through which particles accelerate to create high energy collisions.

Several detectors at other locations record the results of the collisions. Boudreau and Pitt professors Wilfred Cleland, Vladimir Savinov and James Mueller, as well as several Pitt graduate and post-doctoral students, work at a detector called ATLAS. They travel there at different times, but in between, there’s always someone stationed there.

“I go all the time. I’ve been there for at least a few days every month since May,“ Boudreau said.

“It’s important to have people on site …because this is the nervous center of the experiment, and if you want to keep in touch with colleagues, you have to be there,” he said, noting that they sometimes work via teleconferencing as well.

At ATLAS, Boudreau and his colleagues focus on creating complex software and electronic instruments to detect “exotic” physics that do not adhere to the standard model of the universe and to study subatomic particles, Boudreau said.

He said scientists hope to find out if the Higgs boson particle exists. Scientists have predicted that it does, but it is yet to bediscovered. This particle could be key in discovering what conditions caused the Big Bang that many scientists believe led to the creation of the universe.

He said this is a critical part of the experiment. The standard model of physics, he said, depends upon the Higgs boson particle, which scientists believe gives all matter its mass.

If the particle doesn’t exist, Boudreau said, “it means we’re on the wrong track.”

He said that scientists have generally accepted the standard model of physics because it’s the easiest way to explain why matter has mass.

If doesn’t exist, he said, “then where does the mass come from? If it’s something beyond the Higgs boson, then the theory needs to be modified.”

It might be easier for scientists to use the collider data to figure out how the universe was formed.

Boudreau said many scientists believe that studying high energy collisions will give them insight into the earliest movements of the universe.

“If you look at the history of the universe, you know that it’s expanding and it’s cooling down. The energies of this collision bring us back to a point where some interesting things were happening,” he said.

But Boudreau said it might be three to five years before scientists can begin experimenting with the collider. Now, he said, scientists are working below maximum power. They want to test the collider first to make sure it won’t break, he said.

The collider, which has been in the works for the past 20 years, has been making international headlines lately. Some people fear it will cause black holes that will destroy the world or that it could be used to create the anti-matter needed to make a bomb, as it was in the novel and film “Angels & Demons.”

Boudreau dismissed this perception of the collider.

“There is a lot of misunderstanding,” he said. “These kinds of collisions have been happening in the universe since the beginning [of time]. We just focus them within the detector … Most of these people come up with end of the universe scenarios are not within the scientific community.”

However, he expressed that he was still glad that the collider is receiving publicity.

“I think it’s very positive,” he said. “I’m very satisfied people outside our community are aware of it. I hope it inspires people to study this.”