Later this year, the Large Hadron Collider will start smashing protons together at energies never before achieved on Earth. This research addresses a fundamental gap in our understanding of the universe. Current theories of particle physics work well at lower energies, but physicists do not know whether those predictions still hold at the ten-trillion-electronvolt energies the LHC will reach. The Cambridge group helped build two detectors—ATLAS and LHCb—that will capture the debris from these collisions. ATLAS will look for predicted particles such as Z bosons to test existing theory, and will also search for entirely new phenomena, including supersymmetric particles and extra dimensions of space. LHCb will study the subtle differences between matter and antimatter, aiming to explain why the universe today contains almost no antimatter. This is fundamental science with no immediate practical application. But similar curiosity-driven research into particle physics has, in the past, given us technologies such as the World Wide Web, medical imaging scanners, and particle therapy for cancer. A deeper understanding of matter, antimatter, and the forces that govern them could, over decades, open entirely new avenues in energy, materials, or computation.
View original technical description
The Large Hadron Collider will begin to deliver data in October 2009. The Cambridge group has participated in the construction of the ATLAS and LHCb detectors which will explore the physics progresses taking place in the 10 TeV energy regime opened up by the new collider. In ATLAS the group will be making measurements of expected processes like Z-boson production, in order to test whether the predictions of our current theories still hold at high energy. We will also be searching directly for the production of supersymmetric particles, predicted in many theoretical models, and for evidence of the existence of extra space dimensions. In LHCb, we will make measurements aimed at understanding the differences between matter and antimatter, and hence explaining why the Universe we live in appears to contain very little antimatter. In order to pursue this research we will need to work on the operation and calibration of the detector systems we work with. These include the tracking system in ATLAS, which measures the paths of particles, and the RICH detector in LHCb, which can distinguish between different particle types. Since the LHC will in future operate at a higher intensity, we also plan to develop detector technologies capable of working at much higher rates. In parallel, we will develop detector systems for future experiments. We also participate in the MINOS experiment, which studies the properties of neutrinos, and in particular their ability to transmute between neutrino types. We will complete our data analysis work on this experiment, to get the maximum return on the investment made to date.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know