Physicists are building and operating giant detectors at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider to capture the debris from proton collisions at energies never before achieved on Earth. This research tackles fundamental gaps in our understanding of the universe: why particles have mass, whether a hidden layer of particles called supersymmetry exists, why matter survived over antimatter after the Big Bang, and how neutrinos change identity as they travel. These are questions that the current Standard Model of particle physics cannot answer. The project is pure fundamental science. It will not produce a new battery or a faster computer chip next year. But past fundamental particle physics—from the discovery of the electron to the invention of the World Wide Web at CERN—has repeatedly reshaped technology in unpredictable ways. A deeper understanding of nature’s basic forces could, over decades, lead to new materials, novel energy sources, or entirely new computing paradigms. For now, the immediate impact is knowledge: a clearer map of the universe’s operating instructions.
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Our research programme will address fundamental questions of particle physics, such as the origin of mass, the search for supersymmetry, the properties of the neutrino, CP-violation, and the nature of the electroweak and strong interactions. The construction of detectors to explore the physics of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will be completed and the first data will be collected and analysed at this new energy frontier, and physics results published. Specifically, for the ATLAS experiment at the LHC we shall complete our work on the construction of the SemiConductor Tracker and its integration within the experiment at CERN. We shall work on the realisation of the RICH detectors for the LHCb experiment. We shall pursue physics studies and software development for both our LHC experiments, also within the eScience context, and analyse the first data coming from the new accelerator, making use of the Grid. The complementary physics opportunities and experimental challenges presented by a future International Linear Collider will be explored through the CALICE and LC-ABD projects. In neutrino physics, we shall study atmospheric neutrinos and neutrino oscillations with the MINOS experiment at Fermilab, and develop new techniques to extract the best possible results from the data being collected. Our research will continue into the design and application of silicon detectors, electronics and data acquisition systems, through R&D both for the Linear Collider and for future experimental upgrades at the LHC.
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