- #36
PAllen
Science Advisor
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rhody said:Ok, enough fun and frivolity, http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2011/dec/18/untitled-p_godparticle121811/
A yoctosecond is 10 to the minus 24th of a second, which is is one septillionth (short scale) of a second. I thought CMS and ATLAS had sampling rates and frequencies that are much much longer than this, so how to capture such a rare and exceedingly fast event ? Since this is GD I only expect a layman's response to steer me in the right direction, unless of course some BSM professional is out there who cares to answer to a higher level of fidelity, so to speak.
Rhody...
The answer is in what you quoted:
"It then decays into less-exotic particles that careen in all directions in an uncontrolled spew. The challenge for scientists is to analyze this decay pattern and look for authentic Higgs debris buried amid the subatomic wreckage."
Software filters the ocean of data for patterns of decay particles of the right type and total energy occurring closely together in time. You don't need to worry about that yoctosecond. If the pattern is relatively rare by chance with 1 nanosecond synchronization, and you can calculate what the random background rate of production is, you have what is called a detection channel.