Higgs Hunters Talk

higgs boson picture

  • prakash_117 by prakash_117

    Does anybody know why certain lines are dashed and rainbow colored.

    Posted

  • WolfLink by WolfLink

    I've heard the dashed red lines are neutrinos and are shown differently because they are not detected, rather they are predicted when the collision is off balanced.

    I'm not a scientist, that's just the jist of what I saw elsewhere on these forums.

    Posted

  • brownfox by brownfox

    I don't think it's that the dashed line is a neutrino, but that it shows the direction of some 'missing' momentum which might be one or more neutrinos (which are almost impossible to detect) or something else that has evaded the detectors.

    In case anyone is interested in what this means, imagine you're playing pool/snooker and you shoot a ball towards the other end of the table. At the same time, your friend shoots a ball from the other end of the table, so they collide in the middle. You only see one ball fly out towards the right cushion but you know that the other ball will have gone towards the left cushion. Of course, in the LHC you don't know how many particles came out that you didn't see; you'll only be able to calculate a single line of missing momentum - the dashed red line.

    Posted

  • andy.haas by andy.haas scientist

    Good explanation - thanks!

    Posted