Physicists at Queen Mary University of London are hunting for cracks in the Standard Model of particle physics by analysing data from the ATLAS detector at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and searching for signs of CP violation in neutrino oscillations using the T2K experiment in Japan. This matters because the Standard Model, while extraordinarily successful, cannot explain why the Universe contains far more matter than antimatter, nor what dark matter is made of. The group’s work on the Higgs boson, dark matter searches, and neutrino behaviour directly targets these gaps. They are also upgrading the ATLAS detector to handle higher beam intensities, and building the next-generation Hyper-Kamiokande neutrino experiment. This is fundamental science. It does not aim at a near-term practical application. However, past fundamental particle physics research has led to inventions such as the World Wide Web, medical imaging technologies, and superconducting magnets. A deeper understanding of why matter dominates over antimatter, or what dark matter is, would reshape our picture of the cosmos and could, over decades, open entirely unforeseen technological paths.
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The QMUL Particle Physics Research Centre (PPRC) is working on an exciting set of particle physics experiments at the forefront of the field spanning the entire mass-scale from the lowest to the highest mass particles. At the high-mass scale, members of the centre have played an important role in the design, construction of the ATLAS detector at the CERN LHC. The group is actively working on analyses of the vast, rich set of data produced by the detector. The group contributed to the Higgs boson discovery and is engaged in research dedicated to deepening the understanding of the Higgs and searching for discrepancies in the Standard Model through a variety of intricate tests. The group is also exploring dark matter and exotic particle searches in ATLAS. The vast quantity of data produced by the LHC experiments required a distributed, shared computing fabric that is easily accessible to researchers worldwide. The group is heavily involved in GridPP that is targetted to meet this requirement and operates one of the largest Grid sites in the UK. The QMUL Group is also involved in upgrades to the ATLAS detector to meet the challenges of an increase in the luminosity of the beam. The group is focussed on the complex ATLAS Tracker Upgrade and Level One Calorimeter Trigger upgrade programmes. The generic R&D coming from the tracker upgrade is part of our groundwork for our impact activities. At the other end of the mass scale, the neutrino group is involved in ground-breaking studies of the neutrino with significant involvement in three experiments: T2K, Hyper-K, SNO+ and IceCube/IceCube-Gen2. The group played an important role in the design, construction of the T2K long baseline neutrino experiment in Japan. The group has actively contributed to the groundbreaking observations of neutrino oscillations (hinting at non-zero CP violation) and is working on the important goal of detecting an indication of CP violation in T2K. This will provide an important element in unravelling the more matter than antimatter in the Universe mystery. The group plays an important role in the upgrade of T2K: Hyper-Kamiokande which will be a precision experiment with a wide physics program from measuring CP violation to searching got proton decays. The Group plays an important role in the design, construction and operation of the SNO+ experiment that offers a rich programme of neutrino physics with the SNO+ detector located in Canada. This exciting experiment has just started to take data and the group has a key role in the analysis and imminent publication of first results. The Group also plays an important role in an experiment dedicated to studying very high energy atmospheric neutrinos with IceCube/IceCube-Gen2 located in Antarctica. Finally, the Group is maintaining a watching brief across the future collider options sector.
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