An artful Z particle

20 May 1998

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Modern computer reconstructions of tracks in particle detectors often produce bright, colourful images. Here a photographer at CERN, the European Laboratory for Particle Physics near Geneva, has taken a step further towards art, with a photographically enhanced image of one of the first recordings of a Z particle, captured by the experiment known as UA1. The Z particle - the neutral carrier of the weak force that underlies one type of radioactivity (beta-decay) - was created in the collision of a proton and an antiproton at the centre of the detector. It then decayed almost instantly. The tracks coloured yellow here (towards upper left and lower right) have been made by an electron and a positron, produced when the Z decayed.This image is in fact a "detail". The full image* shows the complete pattern of tracks recorded; those coloured green are from other particles produced in the proton-antiproton collision.

(*You can down load high-quality versions of this and other particle physics images at CERN's Photo Database)

Credit: CERN Photo

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