RE: About my own research: gluons, gluinos and sgluons are not weird creatures from Harry Potter
No. Because you can't produce them from an electron-positron initial state. You would need to produce them in association with a top-antitop pair, and the resulting rate is negligible (assuming you have enough energy at all).
Actually, i digged back where I read this about the linear colliders. Yes, these are just on the drawing board. I had more "clicked" on the other one, the CLIC (pun intended ;-), not the one in Japan. It would propose electron-positron collisions around 3TeV.
Within the arguments they are putting forward for its construction, is the study of some Top Quark physics
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compact_Linear_Collider). With some luck, maybe some s-gluons showing up in a few decades ? :-)
I haven't read it yet. I am about to board to Namibia to contribute to the development of particle physics in Africa.
That is so cool! I look forward to reading the story of your adventures over there!
The CLIC project is not really discussed today. There are physicists still studying what we could do there, but the the really serious options are the ILC (linear electron-positron machine) or the FCC (circular machine in which one could possibly collide electrons and positrons, protons, or electrons-protons).
I should write what I do here... but the arrow of time is killing me ;)
I hope you really enjoyed your time promoting P. Physics in Africa. I am curious to know how your audience reacted. I am considering introducing the subject to the high school students in Nigeria once we have covered enough ground in the basics of Physics, probably mid next scholar year.
I find that Particle Physics is something that can get someone really fascinated, maybe addicted, and that, even for people that do not really enjoy general physics as a topic... :-)
The theory lectures were very hard, especially because the level of the students was extremely spread. They ask an incredible number of questions, which was amazing too me. They are by far not shy.
The best was we organized a tutorial session where all the students managed to simulate LHC collisions. They didn't want to leave the room, even those not related to particle physics :)
Yes, it is quite amazing, the willing to learn of these young girls and guys! I can compare this to my own students here. I remind them sometimes the luck they have to have all this knowledge offered to them on a silver plate.
In terms of spread, I agree too. The class in Nigeria is really spread out in terms of age group (13-17, learning the same things). I also found interesting that the brightest students are often quite young, but that's probably a faulty correlation due to the small sample...
I am glad you had such a great time!
Yes, we must be careful with statistics. Especially in such a school where the selection has been made including many diversity criteria (sometimes predominant).