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A special issue of Symmetry (ISSN 2073-8994). This special issue belongs to the section "Physics".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 August 2020) | Viewed by 10484

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Johann Marton

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Guest Editor

Stefan Meyer Institute for Subatomic Physics, Austrian Academy of Science, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Interests: symmetry studies with exotic atoms; test of validity of spin-statistics; atomic physics; hadronic atoms

Prof. Dr. Klaus Jungmann

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen, Zernikelaan 25, 9747 AA Groningen, The Netherlands
Interests: symmetries in atomic physics; QED experiments; muonium; g-2

Prof. Dr. Eberhard Widmann

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Guest Editor

Stefan Meyer Institute for Subatomic Physics, Austrian Academy of Science, 1090 Vienna, Austria
Interests: antimatter; CPT symmetry; antihydrogen
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This special issue covers symmetries in atomic, nuclear and particle physics with focus on precision studies mainly at low energies.

Discrete symmetries (charge conjugation C, parity P, time reversal T) and combined symmetries like CP and CPT play a fundamental role in our understanding of physics. High precision studies are indispensable because of obviously tiny violations in symmetries in atomic, nuclear and particle physics. The violation of symmetries can open our view of fundamental basis of modern physics and can provide input for extensions or even new approaches toward the understanding of open questions. As an example the experimental finding of CP violation in the kaon and B-meson sector is discussed as symmetry breaking leading to the evident matter-antimatter asymmetry (i.e. missing primordial antimatter in the universe), which is one of the most important questions nowadays. Other symmetry breaking tests concern the T-symmetry, which can be investigated by searching for static electric dipole moments (edm) like the edm of the neutron, which is one of the hot and challenging topics in experimental research now. Presently the matter-antimatter symmetry problem is experimentally investigated in experiments with artificially produced antimatter at the Antiproton Accelerator (AD) of CERN. This special issue will give an overlook of theoretical and experimental research and results on symmetry studies in atomic, nuclear and particle physics.

Dr. Johann Marton
Prof. Dr. Klaus Jungmann
Prof. Dr. Eberhard Widmann
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Symmetry is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

discrete symmetries
experimental tests
matter-antimatter asymmetry
antimatter atoms
exotic atoms
electric dipole moments

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

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14 pages, 797 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Sensitivity of Discrete Symmetry Tests in the Positronium System with the J-PET Detector

by Aleksander Gajos

Symmetry 2020, 12(8), 1268; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12081268 - 01 Aug 2020

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 2200

Abstract

Study of certain angular correlations in the three-photon annihilations of the triplet state of positronium, the electron–positron bound state, may be used as a probe of potential CP and CPT-violating effects in the leptonic sector. We present the perspectives of CP and CPT tests using this process recorded with a novel detection system for photons in the positron annihilation energy range, the Jagiellonian Positron Emission Tomography (J-PET). We demonstrate the capability of this system to register three-photon annihilations with an unprecedented range of kinematical configurations and to measure the CPT-odd correlation between positronium spin and annihilation plane orientation with a precision improved by at least an order of magnitude with respect to present results. We also discuss the means to control and reduce detector asymmetries in order to allow J-PET to set the first measurement of the correlation between positronium spin and momentum of the most energetic annihilation photon which has never been studied to date. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Atomic, Nuclear and Particle Physics)

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11 pages, 1906 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Kaonic Atoms to Investigate Global Symmetry Breaking

by Catalina Curceanu, Carlo Guaraldo, Diana Sirghi, Aidin Amirkhani, Ata Baniahmad, Massimiliano Bazzi, Giovanni Bellotti, Damir Bosnar, Mario Bragadireanu, Michael Cargnelli, Marco Carminati, Alberto Clozza, Luca De Paolis, Raffaele Del Grande, Carlo Fiorini, Mihail Iliescu, Masahiko Iwasaki, Pietro King, Paolo Levi Sandri, Johann Marton, Marco Miliucci, Paweł Moskal, Szymon Niedźwiecki, Shinji Okada, Kristian Piscicchia, Alessandro Scordo, Michał Silarski, Florin Sirghi, Magdalena Skurzok, Antonio Spallone, Marlene Tüchler, Gianlorenzo Utica, Oton Vazquez Doce and Johann Zmeskal Show full author list Hide full author list

Symmetry 2020, 12(4), 547; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12040547 - 04 Apr 2020

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 2649

Abstract

Kaonic atoms measure the antikaon-nucleus interaction at almost zero relative energy, allowing one to determine basic low-energy quantum chromodynamics (QCD) quantities, namely, the antikaon-nucleon (

\bar{K}

N) scattering lengths. The latter are important for extracting the sigma terms which are built on [...] Read more.

\bar{K}

N) scattering lengths. The latter are important for extracting the sigma terms which are built on the symmetry breaking part of the Hamiltonian, thereby providing a measure of chiral and SU(3) symmetries breaking. After discussing the sigma terms and their relations to the kaonic atoms, we describe the most precise measurement in the literature of kaonic hydrogen, performed at LNF-INFN by the SIDDHARTA experiment. Kaonic deuterium is still to be measured, and two experiments are planned. The first, SIDDHARTA-2 at LNF-INFN was installed on DA

Φ

NE in spring 2019 and will collect data in 2020. The second, E57 at J-PARC, will become operative in 2021. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Atomic, Nuclear and Particle Physics)

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Review

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15 pages, 320 KiB

Open AccessReview

Testing CPT Symmetry with Neutral K Mesons: A Review

by Antonio Di Domenico

Symmetry 2020, 12(12), 2063; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12122063 - 11 Dec 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 1683

Abstract

The neutral kaon system is a very peculiar system that offers unique possibilities to perform precise tests of the CPT symmetry. The entanglement of neutral kaon pairs that are produced at a

ϕ

-factory opens up new ways and scenarios in order to [...] Read more.

The neutral kaon system is a very peculiar system that offers unique possibilities to perform precise tests of the CPT symmetry. The entanglement of neutral kaon pairs that are produced at a

ϕ

-factory opens up new ways and scenarios in order to test this fundamental discrete symmetry. In this paper, the results of the most recent and significant CPT tests are reviewed. Experiments have set stringent limits on the CPT-violating parameters of different phenomenological models, some of them associated to possible decoherence mechanisms or Lorentz symmetry violation which might be justified in a quantum gravity framework. The present results show no violation of CPT symmetry, while their accuracy in some cases reaches the interesting level at which–in the most optimistic scenarios–quantum gravity effects might show up. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Atomic, Nuclear and Particle Physics)

27 pages, 4175 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperReview

Symmetries and Their Breaking in the Fundamental Laws of Physics

by Jose Bernabeu

Symmetry 2020, 12(8), 1316; https://doi.org/10.3390/sym12081316 - 06 Aug 2020

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3392

Abstract

Symmetries in the Physical Laws of Nature lead to observable effects. Beyond the regularities and conserved magnitudes, the last few decades in particle physics have seen the identification of symmetries, and their well-defined breaking, as the guiding principle for the elementary constituents of matter and their interactions. Flavour SU(3) symmetry of hadrons led to the Quark Model and the antisymmetric requirement under exchange of identical fermions led to the colour degree of freedom. Colour became the generating charge for flavour-independent strong interactions of quarks and gluons in the exact colour SU(3) local gauge symmetry. Parity Violation in weak interactions led us to consider the chiral fields of fermions as the objects with definite transformation properties under the weak isospin SU(2) gauge group of the Unifying Electro-Weak SU(2) × U(1) symmetry, which predicted novel weak neutral current interactions. CP-Violation led to three families of quarks opening the field of Flavour Physics. Time-reversal violation has recently been observed with entangled neutral mesons, compatible with CPT-invariance. The cancellation of gauge anomalies, which would invalidate the gauge symmetry of the quantum field theory, led to Quark–Lepton Symmetry. Neutrinos were postulated in order to save the conservation laws of energy and angular momentum in nuclear beta decay. After the ups and downs of their mass, neutrino oscillations were discovered in 1998, opening a new era about their origin of mass, mixing, discrete symmetries and the possibility of global lepton-number violation through Majorana mass terms and Leptogenesis as the source of the matter–antimatter asymmetry in the universe. The experimental discovery of quarks and leptons and the mediators of their interactions, with physical observables in spectacular agreement with this Standard Theory, is the triumph of Symmetries. The gauge symmetry is exact only when the particles are massless. One needs a subtle breaking of the symmetry, providing the origin of mass without affecting the excellent description of the interactions. This is the Brout–Englert–Higgs Mechanism, which produces the Higgs Boson as a remnant, discovered at CERN in 2012. Open present problems are addressed with by searching the New Physics Beyond-the-Standard-Model. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Symmetry in Atomic, Nuclear and Particle Physics)

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