A particle physics group at Queen Mary, University of London is sifting through the debris of proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider to hunt for the Higgs particle and other new phenomena. This research addresses a fundamental gap in our understanding of the universe: the Standard Model of particle physics cannot explain dark matter, the origin of mass, or why matter survived antimatter after the Big Bang. The group works on the ATLAS detector, which records the spray of particles from each collision, and on the T2K experiment in Japan, which studies how ghostly neutrinos change flavour as they travel. They are also preparing for the SuperB collider and upgrading ATLAS to handle higher beam intensities. This is fundamental science. It has no immediate practical application. The goal is to discover what the universe is made of at its most basic level. If the Higgs particle is confirmed, it will complete the Standard Model. If supersymmetry or dark matter particles appear, it will open an entirely new picture of reality. Past fundamental particle physics research gave us the World Wide Web, medical imaging, and the theory behind modern electronics. The knowledge gained here will shape the next generation of physics—and, eventually, the technologies that follow.
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The QMUL Experimental Particle Physics Group has an exciting set of particle physics experiments at the forefront of the field. Members of the Group have been working on the commissioning and analysis of data from the ATLAS detector at the CERN LHC which has just finished its first full year of data taking from which over a 100 papers have been published. The ATLAS Group will continue the study of the top quark, started at the CDF experiment, at the LHC and the expertise gained will allow us to probe for new physics such as the discovery of the Higgs particle or Supersymmetry. We will also continue our study of proton structure at the highest possible energies. The QMUL Group is also involved in upgrades to the ATLAS detector for the higher luminosity by participating in the ATLAS Tracker Upgrade Level One Calorimeter Trigger upgrade programmes. At the other end of the mass scale the neutrino group is exploiting data from the T2K long baseline neutrino experiment in Japan which will continue the investigations of the recently discovered neutrino oscillations and participating in the rich programme at the SNO+ detector in Canada. In addition the Group is at the forefront of preparations for the SuperB collider project and will look to exploit new opportunities, such Dark Matter searches or Linear Colliders when they become available.
Adrian Bevan (Co-Investigator)Alex Martin (Co-Investigator)Eram Rizvi (Co-Investigator)Francesca Di Lodovico (Principal Investigator)Jeanne Wilson (Co-Investigator)Jonathan Hays (Co-Investigator)Lucio Cerrito (Co-Investigator)Marcella Bona (Co-Investigator)Stephen Lloyd (Co-Investigator)
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