The State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj) renews, this Monday (15), an agreement with the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), in Geneva, Switzerland. The agreement aims to maintain the experiment carried out in the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) particle detector by the High Particle Physics Group, linked to the university’s Institute of Physics, under the coordination of Professor Luis Mundim. In an interview with Agência Brasil, before traveling to Geneva, the dean of Uerj, Mario Carneiro, said that the partnership between the Institute of Physics and Cern began in the 1990s. started in 2002. “It is a very important project because the organization involves more than 4 thousand researchers, engineers and technicians from 250 institutions in more than 50 countries. The Uerj team is the largest Brazilian group participating in this experiment. It is currently considered the world’s largest research effort and takes place in the area of experimental particle physics and basic physics.” Carneiro highlighted the importance of renewing the agreement to “give legal support to these researchers”. The renewal of the agreement will take place at Cern itself, which means a milestone for Uerj. “This project is very special and we are very happy with this event”, said the dean. The idea is not only to improve the project that is in progress but, if possible, to do other projects, he added. “If there is an opportunity, the goal will be to increase Uerj’s participation in this event”. Laws of the universe Twelve Uerj researchers work at Cern, with activities related to the development, assembly and maintenance of systems, exploring the frontier of knowledge about the fundamental laws of the universe. Among the 242 groups that work at the CMS, the Uerj team is in twenty-second place. Professor Mundim explained that the particle detector operates in the Large Hadron Collider’ (LHC) proton accelerator, considered the largest and most ambitious scientific project in the world. This machine works in a circular tunnel with a circumference of 27 kilometers, accelerating two beams of protons in opposite directions. Associated with this accelerator, there are four experiments installed at the points where it makes protons collide; one of these experiments is the CMS, informed Luis Mundim. The CMS can identify and measure the momentum of muons, electrons, photons and jets, being an important tool for testing the Standard Model and new theories in a wide range of energy and luminosity. The professor assures that accelerating particles and making them collide at high energies is a way of recreating the conditions that existed within a billionth of a second after the big bang (theory about the origin and evolution of the universe). This allows physicists to study and try to understand the laws that govern the universe, including magnetic interaction. “It is a study in basic, fundamental science”, said Mundim. “If we think about the laws that describe the phenomena of nature, we are carrying out the determination of parameters of the so-called Standard Model of Elementary Particles and, eventually, looking for a new theory that can better describe the fundamental interactions of nature.” He made it clear, however, that although the standard model is the best that currently exists, it is far from being the definitive theory. Impacts Luis Mundim explained that the impact of this work in the area of physics is significant of high energies and for science in general. High energy physics is the experimental part of matter that studies the fundamental interactions of the universe and its most elementary constituents. It is an area essentially focused on basic science and, being on the frontier of scientific and technological knowledge, has a significant impact on both science and technology, as current experiments are complex and require the development of non-existent technologies to function. By-products have an impact on both physics and medicine through, for example, the application of technology developed to equipment for diagnosing and treating cancer, among other diseases, as well as consumer products. In the case of cancer treatment, in particular the use of technologies developed in accelerators favors the application through the use of particle beams, for the elimination of tumors. Luiz Mundim informed that, in terms of the discoveries themselves, the immediate impact on society is very low, as is usually the case in basic science, except for satisfying human beings’ curiosity to understand the universe in which they live. He recalled that the indirect impacts of this particular area are very large. For Mundim, the development of sensitive screens that today equip cell phones was first used to control the Super Proton Synchrotron (SPS) accelerator in 1973, and data collection began in 1976. WWW, or simply, the internet. The physical medium of the Internet has been around since the 1960s, but it wasn’t until the 1990s that a new way of using it took over our daily lives”. A third significant impact is in the case of cancer treatment.
Agência Brasil
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