Physicists at Cambridge are smashing particles together inside the Large Hadron Collider and firing neutrinos through miles of rock to find out why the Universe is made of matter and not antimatter, and what dark matter actually is. This research addresses the biggest gap in fundamental physics: the Standard Model explains known particles but cannot account for dark matter, the matter-antimatter imbalance, or why gravity is so weak. The group runs experiments on four major facilities—ATLAS, LHCb, MicroBooNE, and DUNE—and is building atom interferometers (AION and MAGIS) that use quantum effects to detect gravitational waves and dark matter particles directly. If successful, the work could reveal entirely new particles or forces, rewriting the textbooks on how the Universe works. There is no immediate practical application—this is curiosity-driven fundamental science. But past fundamental research into particle physics gave us the World Wide Web, medical PET scanners, and the superconducting magnets used in MRI machines. A deeper understanding of dark matter or antimatter could, decades from now, enable technologies no one can yet imagine.
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The Cambridge High Energy Physics Group focuses its research activities on experiments at high-energy accelerators, currently the Large Hadron Collider and the ATLAS and LHCb experiments at CERN, the neutrino experiment MicroBooNE, and the long-baseline neutrino experiment DUNE at Fermilab, and future collider facilities. The goal is to understand the fundamental particles of nature and their interactions, in particular, to discover physics beyond our current understanding, to understand why the Universe is made only of matter and not antimatter and to reveal the identity of dark matter. The Group is also central to the multi-disciplinary Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics projects, AION and MAGIS, which use novel atom interferometry to detect and identify sources of dark matter and gravitational waves in the Universe. This grant will enable the group to fully exploit the physics of the LHC, to deliver our commitments to the current upgrades of the ATLAS and LHCb experiments, to prepare for the future upgrades of ATLAS and LHCb, to consolidate our strong participation in our neutrino programme, to deliver our commitments and exploit the first physics from the AION project and MAGIS experiment, and to undertake generic hardware research and development. The opportunities offered by this exciting physics programme will not only drive the forefront of discovery, but also provide substantial impact to local enterprises and on public engagement.
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