The physics around the corner

Prof. Schwimmer and Dr. Komargodsky tried, for several years, to find a way to prove the Cardi hypothesis, and to turn it into a full-fledged theorem. If the hypothesis is indeed correct, it is possible to easily explain the physics of particles on orders of magnitude that even the LHC is unable to detect

The LHC particle accelerator, operating at the European particle physics research laboratory near Geneva, CERN, signals to physicists that something big may happen soon. The accelerator is able to detect forces and particles that we could not detect until now. These are, for example, particles much smaller than the neutrons and protons in the atomic nucleus (whose size is a millionth of a billionth of a meter). The new accelerator may discover particles whose size is about a billionth of a billionth of a meter - an atto-meter. And if that's not enough, he will be able to produce events where very high energies will act on these tiny particles. These are, quite simply, districts that we could not reach until now. What will we find there?

The truth is, physicists don't know what to expect. But naturally they try to prepare for what is to come, and prepare tools with which they can deal with new phenomena, particles and forces. The big question is, will quantum field theory be able to describe this new field of physics, where the particles are so small, the distances so tiny, and the energies so high. Quantum field theory is the most proven and most accurate scientific theory to date, and in a sense, it is the basis of everything we know about the world. In fact, it is an inevitable result of the attempt to reconcile quantum theory, originally by Bohr and Heisenberg, with Einstein's special theory of relativity.

One of these attempts is expressed in an effort to prove a hypothesis that was first coined by the English physicist John Cardy in 1988. According to this hypothesis, there is a certain inequality, which is responsible for the phenomena in which systems with known "rules of the game", in which many factors participate, reach situations that are impossible explain them using the rules and the players only; For example, the behavior of stocks and indices in the stock exchange, or traffic congestion, or the weather. This is an inequality between the amount of degrees of freedom that exist at very short distances (such as those that can exist between the new tiny particles that may be discovered in experiments at the LHC particle accelerator), and the amount of degrees of freedom at larger distances (such as those that exist between the particles of matter we know today).

If Cardi's hypothesis is correct, because then it may be possible to explain with it, how from a system in which particles much smaller than protons and neutrons operate, at tiny distances and at very high energies, as the system cools, the standard model is obtained, which is the well-known, recognized and accepted physical theory. In other words, if the hypothesis is correct, we will be able to explain and understand how from the very complicated world of the tiny subatomic particles, and the enormous energies that work between them, the world we know developed and was created.

About two years before Cardi presented his hypothesis, in 1986, the physicist Alexander Zamolodchikov was able to prove that an inequality between the degrees of freedom at short distances and the degrees of freedom at long distances exists in two-dimensional systems (having one dimension of space and one dimension of time). Some believe that Zamolodchikov's work spurred Cardi to present his hypothesis regarding a similar inequality that exists in systems with 4 dimensions (3 dimensions of space and XNUMX dimension of time). But the question of whether the hypothesis stands the test of reality remained open, until one evening, a few months ago, on the shore of an island in the Aegean Sea, two theoretical physicists from the Weizmann Institute of Science talked - Prof. Adam Schwimmer from the Department of Physics of Complex Systems, and Dr. Zohar Komargodsky who was a student research at the institute, went on to post-doctoral research at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, and recently returned and joined the scientific staff of the Department of Particle Physics and Astrophysics.

Prof. Schwimmer and Dr. Komargodsky tried, for several years, to find a way to prove Cardi's hypothesis, and turn it into a full-fledged theorem. They shared their ideas from time to time, and among them were several possible courses of action, but none of them matured into a real proof. That afternoon, on the shore of an island in the Aegean Sea, during a break between lectures at a scientific conference held there, the two sat, facing the sun slowly descending into the blue water, and discussed the old problem It did not produce the expected proof, but a certain combination of 4 or 5 starts created the framework on which the proof was based.

So far, the proof has been tested by many physicists, who announced that it does meet various challenges. However, the institute's scientists say that before it will actually be accepted, it will have to meet additional challenges.