Experimental Particle Physics

Physicists are building and operating particle detectors at CERN and DESY to capture the debris from high-energy collisions. The team contributes to the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, which is now shifting from construction to collecting and analysing physics data. They are also finishing analysis from the H1 experiment, preparing for the NA62 experiment, and developing hardware and software for future accelerators. This is fundamental science. The work addresses a gap in knowledge about the most basic building blocks of matter and the forces that govern them. By recording what happens when particles smash together at unprecedented energies, researchers can test the Standard Model of particle physics and search for new phenomena. If successful, this research will deepen our understanding of the universe’s fundamental structure. There is no immediate practical application. However, similar fundamental research into particle physics has historically driven breakthroughs in medical imaging, radiation therapy, and high-performance computing. The detector technologies, data-handling systems, and accelerator designs developed here could eventually find uses in fields such as cancer treatment, materials science, or industrial scanning.