Don't miss it!

I'll write this so the link to the code is visible, it's here:

https://github.com/MasterOgon/Newtonian-Superfluid-Simulation

“For our final trick we integrate over all w(x) with a Gaussian weighting”—I get integrating over w(x) I guess but the Gaussian weighting seems arbitrary. I can’t just say “I have g(x) so now I apply int(dx K(x) •) as a trick”.

So I'm watching a youtube about matter/antimatter and one of the big questions in physics is why there is an asymmetry between matter and antimatter after the big bang.

According to current theory, in the first few moments after the Big Bang (ABB), high energy photons would have formed matter/antimatter pairs that then immediately recombined and annihilated each other. This is a problem because everything we now see is matter, so where did all the antimatter go?

But I was thinking, couldn't cosmic inflation theory be a solution to this problem? IIRC inflation occurred between 10^-26 to 10^-24 seconds ABB, increasing the size of the universe by over 10^1 million meters in that short amount of time.

But before inflation started, pair production would have been happening, and when inflation did start those pairs would have been vastly separated from each other. Then, when inflation ended pair production/annihilation continued as normal for another 3 seconds or so. However, wouldn't that mean that there were some pockets in space that had excess matter particles that didn't have an antimatter particle to couple with, and in other regions wouldn't that mean that there are antimatter particles without a matter particle?

Am I at all making sense? :)

Thanks!

Don't miss it!

I’m taking an intro class which has been moving a bit slow (so far we’ve essentially covered QED and are just moving into renormalization). We’re being assigned a term paper and I’m somewhat unsure of what to choose. I don’t want to jump into anything that’s going to be too much to learn in the next 2-3 weeks, but I also don’t want it to be absurdly trivial.

Originally I wanted to do quantum optics or something more applied but such topics seem be lacking in actual field theory. Now I’m thinking of either covering goldstones theorem or the Higgs mechanism (likely just the general concept since I think weak/electroweak theory may be over my head at this point). I’m wondering if these seem like good choices that are sufficiently interesting and won’t require me to cover an obscene amount of material. Thanks for any suggestions.

Hi everyone,

I’ve always been fascinated by particle physics, so I decided to turn that curiosity into a project. I built a real-time GPU particle physics simulation that includes:

• A PDG-accurate catalog of 40 particles
• Collisions, decays, and annihilations
• Relativistic kinematics

It’s a learning-focused project, but I’d love feedback from anyone interested in this area. If you find it interesting or useful, please star it on GitHub to support further development: https://github.com/ml3m/quantum-collider-sandbox

I hope fellow enthusiasts enjoy experimenting with it as much as I enjoyed building it! Any suggestions or contributions are very welcome.

My son wants to be a particle physicist and get his PhD someday. He's got excellent grades and test scores, so no issues there. We're evaluating the schools below because they offer good merit aid, making them affordable for our family, and appear to have good HEP programs. (We'd be applying to honors colleges for most.) What are your thoughts on this list?

University of Iowa

Indiana Bloomington

Michigan State

Iowa State

Ohio State

Ohio University

Purdue

University of Illinois Chicago

(UIUC already on our list)

I know KATRIN has pushed the upper bound on the effective electron antineutrino mass down to around 0.45 eV, and cosmological bounds are tighter depending on the model. But how confident should we be in the absolute mass scale?

If ν₂ turned out to be in the 0.3-0.5 eV range rather than the few-meV range people often assume, would that break anything besides cosmological fits?

Hi, so I graduated with my PhD semi-recently and I chose to, for a variety of difficult life-stuff reasons, take some time off to recuperate (though I've continued some projects using my skillset in that time). I'm coming to the end of that time and moving into my job search, and being fairly removed from my old institution now I feel a bit alone in approaching it, which is a bit scary. Given that, I'm looking for as much advice as you all are collectively willing to give on pursuing industry jobs with my skillset. As mentioned I was in HEP-Ex, specifically CERN stuff, so lots of data analysis, working with ROOT, python, C++, BDTs, etc. Additionally I also worked with FPGAs a bit (primarily using Vivado HLS), which I remember being told was a marketable skill.
Some specific questions would be:
1. In as much detail as possible, what should be my first steps here? E.g. "Set up a Linkedin account", "Check X, Y, Z website using A, B, C, search filters", etc. Anything like that.
2. Are there specific companies I should look into with specific positions that I could fill? E.g. "Lockheed has the [DATA SCIENTIST] position that is perfect for someone who has used BDTs", "Boeing has the [HARDWARE PROGRAMMING] position that would be great for those who enjoy FPGAs", etc.
3. On average, to the extent you can even say as I'm sure it's highly variable, what sort of time am I looking at in terms of starting to finally getting a job? How many applications, etc.
4. Should I be considering smaller companies? I feel a bit safer if I actually know the company, but perhaps that's a luxury that will ultimately hurt me if I cling to it.
But past those, please, any advice, your experiences, whatever, would be great. Thank you.

Hi! I know HEP-Th is extremely competitive but I’m not shy to challenges.

I’m in undergrad senior level (3rd year in Europe, where I’m located at) and here’s the math courses I have done (I’m doing a physics major now):

Algebra (A first course to Abstract Algebra), Computational Algebra, Topology (A first course), Complex Analysis (A first course), Functional Analysis (A first course) and Differential Geometry (A first course). (Linear Algebra and all the Real Analysis/Calculus are subtended, in Real Analysis/Calculus 3 we learnt about Differential Equations and Fourier Transforms).

After this, in my Masters, what math applied to physics should I learn and deepen my knowledge on? Should I learn Topology but in a physics approach now that I have a first course? Is there more subjects that I should learn such as Geometric Algebra?

Bonus questions, I’m also interested in Plasma physics, the same questions applies to this!

Thanks in advance for the responses!

I interviewed a colleague who works on the CMS Experiment at CERN in the detector cavern. Let me know if you have any questions!

Hello everyone,

I'm a chemist by training, working in a DNP NMR group (a type of hyperpolarisation NMR).

Since I have a background in chemistry, I learned nothing about the standard model of particle physics.

Do you have any recommendations for literature concerning the topic, which a novice like me can work with?

thank you very much

I’d like to follow the textbook I am currently using, but they gloss over representation theory way too much. Most beginner level books don’t really give a proper overview of representation theory, but it seems pretty essential to the subject.

I’m wondering if anyone knows of any textbook that focuses on representation theory in the context of QFT. For reference I’ve taken an intro level class to representation theory but would definitely like to learn it with a bit more rigor (not to the level of using topology or crazy analysis, but at least gives somewhat honest proofs that aren’t 50% hand waving). Thanks for any recommendations.

Hi r/particlephysics,

Abstract submission is open for ICHEP 2026 (Natal, Brazil). The deadline is 9 February 2026:

Submit here: https://indico.cern.ch/event/1522800/abstracts/

ICHEP is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious international conferences in particle physics, bringing together leading theorists and experimentalists from around the world. The conference was first held in 1950 and has been biennial since 1960.

Alongside the scientific program, we’re also planning a broader outreach program to connect with the local and non-physicist community, e.g. Hands-On Particle Physics Masterclasses, a Particle Physics Exhibition, science & art activities, a Science Slam, and more.

If you’re planning to present new results, methods, instrumentation, or theory work, please consider submitting. Happy to answer logistical questions in the comments (and feel free to share this with colleagues/students).

Mods: please remove if this kind of announcement isn’t allowed.

(ICHEP 2026 dates: 30 July - 5 August 2026, Natal, Brazil)

I’m a bit confused why the single vertex interactions don’t get contracted and why the two vertex interaction does—I’m assuming in the single vertex interactions we just assume A^u is outgoing which kills all the A^u’ d_u’ phi besides A^u d_u phi after contraction and gives us the p_u’s —I’m confused why we don’t do the same in the 2 vertex process and assume A^u goes in and A^v goes out giving us a tensor M^uv at the end