Physicists are smashing protons together at ever-higher energies to test whether the Higgs mechanism holds up and to hunt for new particles that could rewrite the laws of physics. This research addresses a fundamental gap: the Standard Model of particle physics cannot explain dark matter, the imbalance between matter and antimatter, or why neutrinos have mass. The team will analyse data from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and the Tevatron to search for supersymmetry and other phenomena beyond the Standard Model. They will also study CP violation—a subtle difference between matter and antimatter behaviour—in particles containing bottom quarks, using experiments at SLAC and later the LHC. Neutrino oscillations, which prove neutrinos have mass, will be investigated with the T2K experiment in Japan and through searches for neutrinoless double beta decay. If successful, this work could confirm or refute the Higgs theory and reveal entirely new forces or particles. The deeper understanding of neutrino properties might one day explain why the universe contains matter at all. The research is fundamentally curiosity-driven, with no immediate practical application. However, past fundamental particle physics led directly to technologies like the World Wide Web, medical imaging (PET scanners), and accelerator-based cancer therapy. A neutrino factory or a high-luminosity LHC detector could similarly seed future innovations in computing, materials science, or energy.
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The grant is to continue the investigation into the properties of elementary particles and the fundamental forces of nature. The dominant programme will be to complete the CMS & LHCb experiments to take data at the LHC and to analyses the first data to see if the Higgs theory is sound and search for evidence of phyisc beyond the standard model sucha as supersymmetry. Before the LHC takes data these seraches will be made at the Tevatron in the USA. An exquisite test of the standard model arises in CP violation in the b-system as this (probable) interference phenomenon can be very sensitive to small amplitudes. This will be investigated in detail by experiments first at SLAC and later at the LHC. Observation of neutrino oscillation shows that the neutrinops are not massless and this can have profound consequnces. These will be investigated in detail by the T2K experiment in Japan and searches for neutrinoless double beta decay. The ultimate neurino experiemnts will require a neutrino factory based on a muon storage ring. This requires developmetn whci is taking place via the MICE experiemnt and a programme of accelrator R&D aimed at a high intensity proton driver. Future particle physics facilities will require more sophisticated detectors and the technologies required for the detectors at the Linear Collidare being investigated with the CALICE experiment and effort is starting on the challengin task of a detector for a very high luminosity LHC.
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