From Ultra Rays to Astroparticles: A Historical Introduction to Astroparticle Physics PDF
Preview From Ultra Rays to Astroparticles: A Historical Introduction to Astroparticle Physics
From Ultra Rays to Astroparticles Brigitte Falkenburg (cid:2) Wolfgang Rhode Editors From Ultra Rays to Astroparticles A Historical Introduction to Astroparticle Physics Editors BrigitteFalkenburg WolfgangRhode PhilosophyandPoliticalScience,Faculty14 Physics,Faculty2 TechnischeUniversitaetDortmund TechnischeUniversitaetDortmund Dortmund,Germany Dortmund,Germany ISBN978-94-007-5421-8 ISBN978-94-007-5422-5(eBook) DOI10.1007/978-94-007-5422-5 SpringerDordrechtHeidelbergNewYorkLondon LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2012954697 ©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaDordrecht2012 Thisworkissubjecttocopyright.AllrightsarereservedbythePublisher,whetherthewholeorpartof thematerialisconcerned,specificallytherightsoftranslation,reprinting,reuseofillustrations,recitation, broadcasting,reproductiononmicrofilmsorinanyotherphysicalway,andtransmissionorinformation storageandretrieval,electronicadaptation,computersoftware,orbysimilarordissimilarmethodology nowknownorhereafterdeveloped.Exemptedfromthislegalreservationarebriefexcerptsinconnection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’slocation,initscurrentversion,andpermissionforusemustalwaysbeobtainedfromSpringer. PermissionsforusemaybeobtainedthroughRightsLinkattheCopyrightClearanceCenter.Violations areliabletoprosecutionundertherespectiveCopyrightLaw. Theuseofgeneraldescriptivenames,registerednames,trademarks,servicemarks,etc.inthispublication doesnotimply,evenintheabsenceofaspecificstatement,thatsuchnamesareexemptfromtherelevant protectivelawsandregulationsandthereforefreeforgeneraluse. Whiletheadviceandinformationinthisbookarebelievedtobetrueandaccurateatthedateofpub- lication,neithertheauthorsnortheeditorsnorthepublishercanacceptanylegalresponsibilityforany errorsoromissionsthatmaybemade.Thepublishermakesnowarranty,expressorimplied,withrespect tothematerialcontainedherein. Copyrightforthecoverillustration:MichaelBackes,TechnischeUniversitätDortmund,http://app.tu- dortmund.de/~backes/media/presse/Magic%201.JPG. Printedonacid-freepaper SpringerispartofSpringerScience+BusinessMedia(www.springer.com) Preface In 1912, Victor Hess discovered cosmic rays. His discovery opened the skies in many regards: for detecting extraterrestrial particles, for making energies beyond theMeVscaleofnuclearphysicsaccessible,forinterpretingallkindofastrophys- icaldataintermsofcosmicmessengerparticles,andfinally,forgivingcosmology an empirical basis. In the 1920s, it turned out that the so-called Höhenstrahlung has an extraterrestrial origin and contains charged particles such as the electron. The discovery of the positron in 1932 inaugurated the detection of a plethora of new subatomic particles. With the rise of the big particle accelerators in the early 1960s, cosmic ray studies shifted from particle physics to astrophysics. The cos- micmicrowavebackgrounddiscoveredin1965gavesupporttothebigbangmodel of cosmology and made cosmology an empirical science. In the late 1980s, with the experiments that measured the solar neutrino flux, part of the particle physics communitymovedbacktocosmicraystudiesandastroparticlephysicsbegan.The experiments of astroparticle physics use particle detectors arranged to telescopes. Hence, astroparticle physics is doing particle physics by means of telescopes, and viceversa,doingastrophysicsbymeansofparticledetectors.Cosmicraysaremes- sengerparticlesthatcarryinformationaboutexplodingandcollapsingstars(inpar- ticular,supernovae,theirremnants,andblackholes),thelarge-scalestructureofthe universe,andthemicrowaveafterglowofthebigbang.Theirinvestigationisoneof themostfascinatingfieldsofmodernphysics. Thisbookmaybereadonitsownasanintroductiontoafascinatingmulti-faceted fieldofresearch,butalsousedinadditiontoundergraduateorgraduatelecturesin astroparticle physics. It covers the historical experiments and lines of thought to whichlecturescannotgivesufficientattention.Thematerialpresentedheremakes the bridge from the beginnings of radioactivity research, particle physics, astro- physics, and cosmology in the early days of quantum theory and relativity, to the current foundationsofphysicalknowledge,and to the questionsand methodsofa futurephysics.Itshowsthatfundamentalresearchisfascinatingandofgreatimpor- tance,andthatitseemsworthtremendouseffortstothephysicists. AtthecentenaryofthepioneeringphenomenonfoundbyVictorHess,wepresent ahistoricalintroductionintoastroparticlephysicshere.Wethinkthatthehistorical v vi Preface approachisagoodthreadforunderstandingthemanyexperimentalmethods,phe- nomena,andmodelsemployedinastroparticlephysics,thewaysinwhichtheyare linkedtoeachother,aswellastheirrelationstotheirneighboringdisciplinesofpar- ticlephysics,astrophysics,andcosmology.Eachofthesefieldsonitsownishighly complex, and to learn a mixture of them before getting to the bottom of any may beconfusingforbeginners.Wehopethatthiscomplexbodyofknowledgeismade more transparent by a historical account of the different research traditions which cometogetherincurrentastroparticlephysics. Astroparticle physics has emerged from several distinct fields of research. In- deed, these fields have not completely grown together as long as physics does not dispose of a unified “theory of everything”. Nevertheless the models and ex- periments of astroparticle physics are much more than provisional or piece-meal physics.Theyarenolessandnomorethansurveysandmapsofourknowledgeof theuniverseatasmallscaleandatalargescale.Onthewayinterraincognita,care- fulcartographyofthedetailsisindispensable.Indeedastroparticlephysicsaimsat establishingasmanyexperimentaldetailsaspossibleaboutcosmicrays,theirparti- clenature,theirspectrum,theirastrophysicalsources,andthemechanismsoftheir acceleration. But in distinction to other scientific disciplines, this gathering of de- tailsdoesnotgiverisetoincreasingspecialization.Quitetothecontrary,thehistory of the different branches of physics grown together in astroparticle physics shows themergingofverydistinctscientifictraditions. Thebookisaddressedtoundergraduateandgraduatestudentsofphysicsandto theirteachers.Itmayserveasbackgroundmaterialforlectures.Itmaysalsoserve thestudentsandteachersofotherfaculties,inparticularphilosophersandhistorians of science, and everybody interested in a fascinating field of research in physics. To historians and philosophers of science it gives an overview as well as detailed information of a new sub-discipline of physics that has not been studied yet as a whole,butonlyinpartialapproachestothehistoryofparticlephysics,cosmology, etc., and to their epistemological aspects. Historians of science will read the book as a history written by the physicists, with all the advantages and disadvantages of objectiveexpert knowledgecombinedwith subjectivememory.Philosophersof science will find in the book a lot of epistemological material, most of which has been neglected by a philosophy of physics that has traditionally been focusing on thetheoriesratherthanthephenomenaofphysics,eventhoughthelatteraremost important constraints of the former. The history, the current shape, and the goals of astroparticle physics raise deep epistemological questions about the grounds of a discipline grown together from distinct scientific traditions in search for unified knowledge.Butthesephilosophicalquestionsarekeptaparthere.Theywillbedis- cussedinafollowervolumeonthequestionofwhatkindofknowledgeastroparticle physicsgathersaboutparticlesfromcosmicsources. The authors of the book reflect the various approaches to astroparticle physics. Allofthemsubstantiallycontributedtodevelopingthemany-facetedmethodsand totheresultsofthisfieldofresearch.Weshouldaddthatthecollectionofsubjects presentedhereisfarfrombeingcomplete.Wethanktotheauthorsandweapologize forallneglectedsubjectsandallthecolleaguesandtheirmeritswhichcouldnotbe includedinthebook. Preface vii This volume emerged from a workshop on the history and philosophy of as- troparticlephysicswhichtookplaceinDortmundinOctober2009,andwhichwas supported by the German Physical Society. We would like to thank the authors, Kirsten Theunissen from Springer, whose support made this edition possible, and RaphaelBolinger,whopreparedAppendicesA–D. Dortmund,Germany BrigitteFalkenburg WolfgangRhode Contents 1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 WolfgangRhode 2 From the Discovery of Radioactivity to the First Accelerator Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 MichaelWalter 3 DevelopmentofCosmology:FromaStaticUniversetoAccelerated Expansion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 MatthiasBartelmann 4 Evolution of Astrophysics: Stars, Galaxies, Dark Matter, and ParticleAcceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71 PeterL.Biermann 5 DevelopmentofUltraHigh-EnergyCosmicRayResearch . . . . . . 103 Karl-HeinzKampertandAlanA.Watson 6 Very-HighEnergyGamma-RayAstronomy:A23-YearSuccess StoryinAstroparticlePhysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 EckartLorenzandRobertWagner 7 SearchfortheNeutrinoMassandLowEnergyNeutrinoAstronomy 187 KaiZuber 8 From Particle Physics to Astroparticle Physics: ProtonDecayandtheRiseofNon-acceleratorPhysics . . . . . . . . 215 HinrichMeyer 9 TowardsHigh-EnergyNeutrinoAstronomy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 ChristianSpiering 10 FromWavestoParticleTracksandQuantumProbabilities . . . . . 265 BrigitteFalkenburg ix x Contents AppendixA Timetable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 AppendixB NobelPrizes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305 AppendixC Textbooks. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309 AppendixD BooksinHistoryofPhysics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315 CitationIndex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 NameIndex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329 SubjectIndex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335 Chapter 1 Introduction WolfgangRhode Takingthediscoveryofthe“UltraRays”,nowadayscalled“CosmicRadiation”,by Victor Hess 1912 as a beginning, the research field of Astroparticle Physics cel- ebrates in 2012 its 100th Birthday. It is a unique research field, to which results fromalargenumberofotherphysicaldisciplinescontributeandwhichtreatsfunda- mentalquestionsofastrophysics,particlephysicsandcosmology.Inthisbook,the developmentofAstroparticlePhysicssinceitsbeginningintheearly20thcentury isdescribedincontributionsofauthorswhoallhaveleftdistinctivefootstepsinthe field they are reporting about. Emphasizing the basic ideas of the development, in this first chapter a tour d’ horizon on the connecting path between the following contributionsisfollowed. 1.1 Rootsand Connections At the beginning of modern physics, there were the two different approaches of GalileoGalileiandFrancisBacontothequestionofhowthebookofnatureshould beread.Galileiintroducedtheanalytic–synthetictechniquetosubdivideeveryphys- icalprobleminitsproperties,toinvestigatethesepropertiesindetail,toexpressthe experimental results – as good as possible – in the language of mathematics, and finally to synthesize the solution to the original problem from these investigated constituents.Bacon,tothecontrary,suggestedthatthephysicistshouldobservethe experimentasawhole,notanatomizetheexperimentalsetupbutnoticeeveryinflu- encingeffectandfinallyformulatethesolutionlikeajudgerenderstheverdictafter havingcometoknowallevidence. The rapid and very successful development of physics is a consequence of an application of Galilei’s analytic–synthetic method. By restricting the range of the (cid:2) W.Rhode( ) PhysicsDepartment,TUDortmundUniversity,Otto-Hahn-Str.4,44227Dortmund,Germany e-mail:[email protected] B.Falkenburg,W.Rhode(eds.),FromUltraRaystoAstroparticles, 1 DOI10.1007/978-94-007-5422-5_1,©SpringerScience+BusinessMediaDordrecht2012 2 W.Rhode analyticalinterestoftheresearchers,physicaldisciplinesandbranchesandlateron completeengineeringfacultieswereestablished.A‘physicaldiscipline’inthisway appearsasphysicswithinaspecialbranchofinterest. It seems that the analytic–synthetic way of research is perfectly adapted to the needsofphysics–solongafurtherextensionoftheanalysis,abettercontrolofthe experimentalparametersoranenlargementoftherangeofmeasurementsinalabo- ratoryisstillpossible.Buthowcanoneproceed,ifthereisnooronlylimitedcontrol overtheexperimentalparameters,iftheimprovementoftheresolutionofthedetec- tor does not lead anymore to a better understanding of a subsystem, which again solves the primary question? Then one might feel unwillingly thrown in the posi- tion of Bacon’s judge. The ‘evidence’ here means results of measurements, often correlated,inexperiments,whichcanbecontrolledonlypartiallyandinafigurative sense.The‘verdict’reliesonasimultaneoussolutionofthe‘evidence’-puzzlewith physical,mathematicalorevenmodernstatisticalmethods. Since new techniques and actual research always are in contradiction with this uncontrolledoruncontrollablepartoftheexperiments,newscienceisinthissense alwaysattheborderlinebetweenGalileoandBacon.Howeasyforexampleques- tionsinparticlephysicscouldbeanswered,ifonlythephysicisthadthefreedomto only switch on the reaction that he wants to investigate! The subject of this book, thedevelopmentofAstroparticlePhysicsasaphysicaldisciplineisanexampleof howphysicalquestionsaresolvedinamuchmore‘Baconian’than‘Galileian’way. Also a second approach to the question of the special way of Astroparticle Physics concerns nothing less than the goal of all physical research. The episte- mological key question is: Does one intend to draw a picture of the world, which isastrueaspossible,orshoulditbeassimpleandbeautifulaspossible?Giventhe smallpartofthephysicalworld,inwhichsingularmeasurementsarepossible,the truth-requirementdepictsthisworldasapatchworkofapproximations.Therequire- ment of beauty and simplicity on the other hand leads into that Platonic world in whichthenatureisdescribedbyasmallnumberofforces.Thepriceforthisbeauty is,however,aninclusionofassumptionsandofextrapolationsinthemathematical model and finally a loss of provable truth. While Mach’s critical positivistic ques- tions helped to identify the right questions in the dusk of classical physics, in the dawnofquantummechanicsandthetheoryofrelativityphysicistsquicklyadopted thegoaloffindingtheunifyingworldformula. The heart of most physicists who think about this problem still seems to beat moreforthebeautymodelthanfortheuglytruth.Thereforeitisnosurprisethatin disciplines like elementary particle physics, the search for a mathematical expres- sionoftheunifiedforcesbetweentheparticlesisoneofthedrivingforcestobuild step by step larger and faster and more precise and better controlled experiments. Giventhesuccessofthestandardmodelofelementaryparticlephysicsindescribing theresultsofthesehighprecisionexperiments,istherestillroomforAstroparticle Physicsonthebeautysideofthatdiscussion,oristhisdisciplinecondemnedtolive withitspassivemeasurementsinapositivisticpatchworkworld? Theanswertothisquestionhastwosides.First,onehastobeawarethatasearch for more beauty in describing the theory alone is not a sufficient reason to jus-
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