Solving Feynman Integrals by Reducing to Linear Algebra?

Feynman Integrals have been the bane of theoretical particle physicists' existence for quite a while now. This is a problem, because the integrals are centrally important to every calculation these physicists make.

Since quantum field theory took root in the mid-1900s, Feynman integrals have been inextricable from the work of theoretical physicists. Adrian Cho from Science.org explains them best, "Each integral corresponds to one of the quirky diagrams concocted in 1948 by Richard Feynman to quickly figure out what to calculate for a particular particle interaction. For example, one electron can deflect another when the two exchange a photon, so the simplest Feynman diagram for the process consists of two lines representing the electrons and a wavy line connecting them that represents the photon. The doodle serves a serious purpose: Each line stands for a component in an integral yielding the probability of interaction given each electron’s initial and final momentum.

Even a graduate student can handle that integral. However, electron interactions are much more complex. For example, the exchanged photon can morph into an electron-positron pair and back into a photon, or one electron can emit and reabsorb a particle called a Z boson. Such “perturbations” correspond to Feynman diagrams with one or more closed internal loops, and precise calculations must account for at least the simpler loop diagrams."

Last week in Physical Review Letters, theoretical physicists Yan-Qing Ma and Zhi-Feng Liu announced their development of a new method that reduces the integral to linear algebra.

Want to read more, visit Science.org here.

New Minerals Found in El Ali Meteorite.

Scientists at the University of Alberta have discovered at least two minerals in samples of the 17-ton El Ali Meteorite found in Somalia that have never been discovered naturally on Earth before.

The two new minerals were found in a 70 gram slice of the meteorite sent to the University of Alberta for classification. There is a potential third new mineral still under review as of this writing.

The new minerals have been named by the U of A researchers as "elaliite" and "elkinstantonite." The first after the meteorite itself "el-ali-ite" and the second after Vice President of the Arizona State University Interplanetary Initiative, Professor at ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration, and principal investigator of NASA’s upcoming Psyche mission, Lindy Elkins-Tanton.

The researchers from the University of Alberta who discovered the new minerals worked closely with researchers from UCLA and the California Institute of Technology (CalTech).

The two minerals had previously been synthetically manufactured before, so there was record of the minerals to compare to.

These identifications are exciting, because new minerals could lead to new materials for a host of uses later down the line.

Meanwhile, the El Ali meteorite appears to have been moved elsewhere in search of a purchaser. It remains to be seen whether the rest of the meteorite will be available for additional scientific research.

To read more about this discovery, visit the University of Alberta's story, here.