Chapter 54: Correction of the Lamb Shift by Two-Photon Exchange
After playing badminton for an hour in the table tennis hall, both of them were sweating profusely.
"Phew~ It's definitely more interesting than doing exercises."
Compared to doing exercises which are exercises for the elderly.
Competitive sports like badminton are indeed more interesting.
Lou Song knew that Xu You didn't usually play badminton, so he didn't use his full strength, but tried his best to feed the ball to Xu You.
Otherwise, Xu You probably wouldn't be able to catch a single ball.
After taking a look at the system interface, Xu You found that his fatigue level had almost been cleared.
"It's really a good way to relax. It can exercise the body, relax the mind, and exercise the cervical spine."
For students who suffer from great pressure on their cervical spine, badminton is indeed a very good sport.
Xu You couldn't help but sigh that Lou Song's way of relaxing was even more unique than Hu Shucheng's.
…
Although my life as an auditor at Jida University was not full of ups and downs, every day was very fulfilling.
Xu You's various abilities are also improving steadily.
On this day, Xu You came to the classroom for class as usual.
This class is an atomic physics class, taught by Professor Wang Xiangwu from the School of Physics of Jilin University.
This is a teacher that Xu You likes very much.
Not only is he knowledgeable, but he also does not stick to textbooks when giving lectures.
I also often expand some relevant extracurricular knowledge.
"Let me tell you something. Recently, our research group at the School of Physics of Jilin University and the University of Connecticut have made a new achievement in cooperation. For the first time, we used lattice quantum chromodynamics, or lattice QCD, to study the Lamb shift of muon hydrogen atoms and successfully obtained the correction of the Lamb shift by two-photon exchange."
Everyone looked confused after listening to Wang Xiangwu's words.
Including Xu You, no one knew what Wang Xiangwu meant exactly.
Although except Xu You, everyone is an undergraduate student in the School of Physics.
But obviously he has not been exposed to scientific research and has no idea what Wang Xiangwu is talking about.
"I know you must be confused. But it doesn't matter. I will explain it to you in a more popular way."
Then, Wang Xiangwu abandoned those professional terms and terminology and tried his best to explain in a way that undergraduates could understand.
With Wang Xiangwu's more popular explanation, Xu You roughly understood the meaning.
Simply put, a more advanced method was used to measure the size of protons with higher accuracy.
"In the new long-range subtraction scheme, we relied on the Tianhe-3 supercomputer at the Huaxia Supercomputing Center in Tianjin, which helped us realize the grid point calculation of the two-photon diagram for the first time. This made our calculations more systematic and more accurate."
Listening to Wang Xiangwu's story, Xu You couldn't help but feel proud of China's technological development.
Over the past few decades, China has achieved breakthrough results in many fields thanks to the unremitting efforts of its people.
Even in many aspects, China is still lagging behind.
But there is hope that everything will turn around in the coming decades.
"I'm telling you this news not just to let you know the facts. If possible, I hope you can also calculate this problem yourself."
Hearing Wang Xiangwu's words, the students couldn't help but be a little surprised.
Isn’t this the result calculated by a supercomputer?
How can ordinary students, without supercomputers, calculate such huge amounts of data?
"Of course, I'm not asking you to calculate such precise data. Now I'm going to provide you with some basic information, and you can use it as a problem to calculate. Of course, this is an open-ended problem, there is no exact result, only a more precise precision value."
As he spoke, Wang Xiangwu showed a .
The picture includes various data required for calculations, such as wavelength, frequency, energy, etc.
"After you go back, you can calculate the final result based on these data. This is not a mandatory assignment. If anyone has done it, please send it to my email."
Even if it is just a rough calculation, it is already beyond the syllabus for these undergraduates.
But there are still many students who take this picture with their mobile phones and try to make it when they go back.
This is the learning atmosphere of Jida University.
Everyone has strong self-control and there is no need for the teacher to ask anything of them.
Xu You also quickly took this picture and prepared to go back and study it carefully.
Although Xu You had accumulated a lot of knowledge of university physics through studying physics competitions.
But after all, there is a difference between competition knowledge and university knowledge.
Compared with these real undergraduates, Xu You still put himself in a low profile.
In the evening, after finishing all the classes, Xu You returned to the dormitory and concentrated on studying this problem.
"Physics homework? Looks like it's going to be interesting."
"Well, the professor left a question that is said to be beyond the syllabus, but I want to challenge it. Do you want to try it too?"
Lou Song waved his hand when he heard this.
"I only know a little bit about physics. I can't understand anything too profound. I have to remember all kinds of theories and formulas, so forget it. But if it involves any mathematical knowledge, we can discuss it together."
"Well, I'll study it myself first."
Next, Xu You started deep learning and devoted himself to studying this problem.
In fact, what the question ultimately seeks is the distribution radius inside the proton.
As we all know, proton is one of the basic particles that make up the material world.
But inside the proton, there is actually a complex structure.
Inside it, it is composed of charged quarks and uncharged gluons.
We usually think that the charge distribution radius inside a proton is the size of the proton.
In order to simplify the question, Wang Xiangwu directly provided some data that needed to be measured.
After some research and thinking, Xu You finally came up with an idea for the calculation.
"This calculation should be a rough result."
After completing this series of calculations, Xu You felt a little strange.
For some reason, Xu You always felt that this question should not be so simple.
And after comparing with the high-precision calculation results of supercomputer.
Xu You discovered that the error was still quite large.
"Could it be that... Professor Wang wants us to calculate with more than just a rough accuracy?"
Suddenly, Xu You recalled something Wang Xiangwu said in class.
The charge distribution inside the proton will have a slight effect on the energy level of the hydrogen atom.
Although this effect is small, it is an error that cannot be ignored for high-precision calculations.
"I see. This energy level data is actually inaccurate!"
At this moment, Xu You couldn't help but smile.
Professor Wang’s topic is really charming and interesting.
