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A New Gamma Ray Observatory In Northern Chile

The SWGO Collaboration (SWGO stands for Southern Wide-Field Gamma Observatory) met this week in...

Has Quark-Gluon Plasma Been Observed Yet?

I will start this brief post with a disclaimer - I am not a nuclear physicist (rather, I am a lesser...

Proposal: Call Skoton The Dark Photon

I am presently in Cairns, sitting in a parallel session of the "Quark Confinement and the Hadron...

Antimatter Over Eurasia

Last week I traveled from Venice to Tokyo through Zurich, and during the flights I could do some...

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Tommaso DorigoRSS Feed of this column.

Tommaso Dorigo is an experimental particle physicist, who works for the INFN at the University of Padova, and collaborates with the CMS and the SWGO experiments. He is the president of the Read More »

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Will The Standard Model Die By The Hands Of Its Dearest Child ?

Will The Standard Model Die By The Hands Of Its Dearest Child ?

Jul 23 2009 | comment(s)

A new paper on the ArXiV caught my attention this evening for several reasons. First of all, because two of its five authors (J.Ellis, J.R.Espinosa, G.F.Giudice, A.Hoecker, and A.Riotto) are (or have been) my colleagues in Padova University; second, because the title is quite catchy; third, because indeed the results it presents are valuable food for thought.
The Say of the Week

The Say of the Week

Jul 23 2009 | comment(s)

"Other people's data ntuples are a bit like their genitals. You may occasionally be allowed to play with them, but you should not expect to be granted unhindered access."

Unknown (the previous attribution to M. F. is fallacious)
B-Quark Jets: Keys To New Discoveries

B-Quark Jets: Keys To New Discoveries

Jul 22 2009 | comment(s)

In this two-parts article I wish to describe in some detail, but still at an elementary level, the characteristics of one of the most important probes of the physics of subnuclear collisions at today's particle physics experiments: jets of hadrons originated from energetic bottom quarks, or more familiarly, b-jets. By posting a dedicated article on b-jets, I hope I will be able to describe in more detail elsewhere other physics topics, such as Higgs boson decays or top quark signatures, without being hampered by having to introduce the phenomenology and detection of b-jets from scratch every time.


The Nuts And Bolts Of The

The Nuts And Bolts Of The "Nail The Higgs Down" Plot

Jul 20 2009 | comment(s)

As silly as it may look, I am going to start this post by publishing for the third time in a row the same figure. That is because I want to keep the promise I made earlier that I would explain in terms as simple as possible (although not simpler) the details hidden behind the coloured curves and functions pictured there. I will also take this chance to come down a little from the level of technicality of the recent posts: after all, this blog is supposedly for everybody, and not just for Ph.D. students and recipients.

Blogging from Simos Beach

Blogging from Simos Beach

Jul 19 2009 | comment(s)

Simos beach is one of the best beaches of Greece, and arguably of the whole European continent. It is located at the southern tip of the small island of Elafonissos, a four-mile-wide rock dangling off the eastern of the three fingers shaping the Peloponnese. I chose this place for three weeks of sun, snorkeling, and rest with my family; and to rearrange my thoughts in view of September, when several interesting occupations await me: a conference in Japan, a couple of articles to produce, a course of Subnuclear Physics to hold.
Running Top Mass Points To SUSY-Like Higgs

Running Top Mass Points To SUSY-Like Higgs

Jul 17 2009 | comment(s)

Yesterday I posted a short article whose main purpose was to show a figure I had received from Sven Heinemeyer, a phenomenologist who specializes in the study of Minimal Supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model (MSSM).

Besides predicting a mirror copy of Standard Model (SM) particles, MSSM models are characterized by containing not just one, but five distinct Higgs bosons; over much of the space of possible parameters of these theories, one of the five Higgs bosons is quite similar to the one and only SM Higgs, so that one can discuss the SM Higgs and the lightest neutral scalar of the MSSM together without generating confusion.