A group of Taiwanese physicists participated in an international project that helped to uncover clues that may one day lead to an explanation for the absence of antimatter, academic sources said on Saturday.
While conducting particle physics experiments, the Belle collaboration, an international research project based at the High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) in Japan, observed in B mesons a new source of charge-parity (CP) violation -- a phenomenon thought to be responsible for eliminating antimatter.
`NATURE'
The results of the experiments were published in the journal Nature and represent a breakthrough in "B-Factory" experiments, a KEK news release said.
Some particle physicists believe that while equal amounts of matter and antimatter were produced in the Big Bang, the antimatter was later destroyed.
One hypothesis on the absence of antimatter concerns the violation of CP symmetry, a difference in the elementary properties of matter and antimatter. To date, evidence of CP violation has only been observed in the K and B meson systems, with larger effect in the latter.
B-Factory
To better understand the CP violation in B mesons, scientists devised the B-Factory -- a particle accelerator -- to produce large numbers of B mesons -- one group of the elementary particles theorized in particle physics.
There are only two B-Factory projects in the world -- the Belle at KEK and the BaBar collaboration at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center in California.
The 20-strong Taiwanese team, comprised of professors and students from National Taiwan University (NTU), joined the Belle collaboration under the title "NTU High Energy Physics Group" in 1994. The team has since produced some 50 research papers, a team member said.
Team member Chang Pao-ti (張寶棣), a professor in NTU's physics department, described the results as "preliminary," but said that they might be able to establish a new type of physics that could one day explain the absence of antimatter.
RESOLUTIONS DEBATE: Taiwan’s allies said that UN and WHA resolutions cited by China and other nations ‘do not determine Taiwan’s participation in WHO activities’ A proposal to invite Taiwan to this year’s World Health Assembly (WHA) was rejected on Monday, resulting in Taipei’s absence from the annual meeting for a ninth consecutive year, although partners spoke up for Taiwan’s participation at the first day of the meeting. The first agenda item after the opening was a “two-on-two debate” on a proposal to invite Taiwan to participate at the WHA as an observer. Similar to previous years, two countries made statements in favor of the proposal, while two others expressed their opposition. Philippine Secretary of Health Teodoro Herbosa, president of the 78th WHA, accepted the WHA General Committee’s
Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr arrived in Taiwan last night to kick off his first visit to the country since beginning his second term earlier this year. After arriving at Taoyuan International Airport at around 6:30 pm, Whipps and his delegation were welcomed by Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍). Speaking to gathered media, the Palauan leader said he was excited and honored to be back in Taiwan on his first state visit to Taiwan since he was sworn in this January. Among those traveling with Whipps is Minister of State Gustav N. Aitaro, Public Infrastructure
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on Friday laid out the Cabinet’s updated policy agenda and recapped the government’s achievements ahead of the one-year anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration. Cho said the government had made progress across a range of areas, including rebuilding Hualien, cracking down on fraud, improving pedestrian safety and promoting economic growth. “I hope the public will not have the impression that the Cabinet only asked the legislature to reconsider a bunch of legal amendments,” Cho said, calling the moves “necessary” to protect constitutional governance and the public’s interest. The Cabinet would work toward achieving its “1+7” plan, he said. The
Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) hosted a dinner in Taipei last night with key Taiwanese suppliers to celebrate the successful mass production of the company’s new Blackwell AI systems. Speaking to the media earlier yesterday, Huang thanked Nvidia’s Taiwanese partners for their contributions to the company’s ecosystem, while also sharing his plans to meet with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) founder Morris Chang (張忠謀). In response to rumors that Nvidia will launch a downgraded Hopper H20 chip for China in July, Huang dismissed the reports, saying, “That is not true.” He clarified that there
RSS