A handful of tabletop experiments scattered across basements and underground labs in Europe and North America are hunting for cracks in the Standard Model of particle physics—the reigning theory of the subatomic world. These experiments probe questions that the Standard Model cannot answer. Why does matter dominate over antimatter in the Universe? Why do neutrinos have mass? Are there undiscovered symmetries in nature? The projects include searching for a neutron’s electric dipole moment (which would reveal a new source of matter–antimatter asymmetry), testing whether the laws of physics change depending on direction or velocity (Lorentz violation), measuring neutrino oscillations with unprecedented precision, and hunting for neutrinoless double-beta decay—a process that would prove neutrinos are their own antiparticles. This is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. But the payoff is profound: a deeper understanding of why the Universe exists as it does. Past fundamental particle physics research gave us the World Wide Web, medical imaging, and GPS. If these experiments succeed, they could reshape our picture of reality—and, historically, that has always led to unexpected technologies.
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This programme uses mostly small, low-energy experiments to look for and to study features originating beyond the traditional Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. These include an electric dipole moment of the neutron (for which the unsatisfactory SM parameterisation of CP violation predicts a value many orders of magnitude smaller than most other models such as Supersymmetry), Lorentz invariance violation (a feature of some Grand Unified Theories), precision measurements of neutrino oscillations (which require a finite neutrino mass), and neutrinoless double-beta decay (which would require neutrinos to be so-called Majorana particles, i.e. their own antiparticles). All of the projects in this proposal are, or can expect to be, world leading in their respective areas, despite being very low-cost in comparison with more 'traditional' collider-based particle physics projects. Much of this work also provides a vital link to cosmology, thus bringing us closer to an understanding of our origins -- for example, CP violation underlies the dominance of matter over antimatter in the Universe.The work is to be carried out in a variety of locations: neutron EDM development work at Sussex is to be followed by exploitation at the ILL in Grenoble; MINOS is situated primarily at Fermilab (Chicago), and SNO in Ontario; SLAM will stay at Sussex; COBRA is based at Gran Sasso, Italy.
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