Vacuum science has been integral to major scientific advancements. One of the most prominent of these is gravitational wave detectors. Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time that are caused by violent processes such as exploding stars, collisions between neutron stars or the merging of black holes – a concept predicted by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity in 1915.
One of the most discussed concepts amongst the astrophysics community is black holes. A black hole is a volume of space where the presence of gravity is so extreme that fast moving particles or light cannot escape.
The study of particle physics is conducted in machines known as particle accelerators (or particle colliders). These machines use huge electromagnetic fields to accelerate proton particles to velocities approaching the speed of light, focus them into a fine beam, and then monitor the matter that results from their collision with other particles.
Man’s desire over the last three centuries to travel faster-and-further has been a tale of innovation and discovery to overcome the boundaries imposed by gravity and distances.
First there were hot air balloons, then the railway bonanza, then the internal combustion engine and automobiles, followed by airplanes (which evolved from cloth, wood, and wire contraptions) through to super-sonic jets, and then more recently fuel powered rockets which convey astronauts deep into the heavens.
KATRIN (Karlsruhe Tritium Neutrino Experiment) is a programme to measure the mass of the electron anti-neutrino, with sub-eV precision. This experimental work, which is taking place at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), will investigate one of neutrino physics’ most important, but still unanswered, questions: “What is the absolute mass of neutrinos?”
