Fundamental interactions

Nuclear and particle physicists study fundamental interactions for two basic reasons: to clarify the nature of the most elementary pieces of matter and determine how they fit together and interact. Most of what has been learned so far is embodied in the Standard Model of particle physics, a framework that has been both repeatedly validated by experimental results and is widely viewed as incomplete.

"[Scientists] have been stuck in that model, like birds in a gilded cage, ever since [the 1970s]," wrote Dennis Overbye in a July 2006 essay for The New York Times. "The Standard Model agrees with every experiment that has been performed since. But it doesn't say anything about the most familiar force of all, gravity. Nor does it explain why the universe is matter instead of antimatter, or why we believe there are such things as space and time."

Rare isotopes produced at FRIB's will provide excellent opportunities for scientists to devise experiments that look beyond the Standard Model and search for subtle indications of hidden interactions and minutely broken symmetries and thereby help refine the Standard Model and search for new physics beyond it.

Sources: 2006 brochure from the RIA users community, New York Times