Exploring Strange Matter
There鈥檚 a lot we don鈥檛 know about the Universe's beginnings. In fact, scientists theorize there鈥檚 about 95% that we don鈥檛 understand about the matter which makes up everything around us. They call part of it 鈥渟trange鈥� matter.
However, that matter may not stay a mystery for long. Dr. Rene Bellwied, M.D. Anderson Chair Professor of Physics at NSM, has made a career exploring strange matter and trying to find what role it plays in our universe.
Funded by a $2.3 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, Bellwied is collaborating with Anthony Timmins, Associate Professor of Physics, and Lawrence Pinsky, Moores Professor of Physics, to delve deeper into these mysteries through a series of experiments.
鈥淎t the beginning of the universe, you had an enhancement of strange quarks, which we have just verified through measurements at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. These strange quarks had to go somewhere,鈥� said Bellwied, who leads the UH Relativistic Heavy Ion Group.
"They aren't really necessary for life as we know it, but they can form a different state of matter that might have interesting implications for the distribution of mass in the universe. We believe that strange matter can be found in the interior of neutron stars and will leave a signal when these stars collide and send out gravitational waves."
To learn more about Dr. Bellwied鈥檚 research, read UH鈥檚 news story.
You can catch Dr. Bellwied live, October 23, at our Movie Night, where he鈥檒l be hosting Angels and Demons. Join in as he explains some of the science behind the movie, part of which was filmed in his CERN laboratory. Learn more about Movie Night.