Physicists at Lancaster are smashing particles together at CERN's Large Hadron Collider and firing neutrinos through detectors in Japan to work out what the Universe is made of and why it exists at all. This is fundamental science. The problem is that the Standard Model of particle physics—our best description of matter and forces—cannot explain why the Universe contains far more matter than antimatter. The Lancaster team is hunting for the answer in two places: the behaviour of particles called B hadrons and neutrinos, both of which may show subtle differences between matter and antimatter (CP violation). They are also studying the Higgs boson and searching for new symmetries of nature, such as supersymmetry, and extra spatial dimensions. If the research succeeds, it will rewrite our understanding of how the Universe evolved in the first moments after the Big Bang. There are no immediate practical applications—this is curiosity-driven work. But past fundamental particle physics has given us the World Wide Web, medical imaging (PET scanners), and the proton therapy machines used to treat cancer. A deeper grasp of matter's fundamental structure could, in decades to come, unlock technologies no one can yet predict.
View original technical description
This research is aimed at understanding the properties of the basic building blocks of the Universe (the elementary particles) and the nature of the fundamental forces which govern the interactions of these particles. In so doing, deep insights will be gained about the origin and evolution of the Universe, especially in the first moments after the Big Bang. The Lancaster research programme covers all the main types of accelerator facilities and is based on hadron collider physics with the LHC (CERN) machine, and the observation of long baseline neutrino oscillations in Japan and elsewhere. All of this work will be underpinned by Lancaster's expertise in characterising and understanding the properties of heavily irradiated silicon particle detectors, in operating high performance computing facilities on the Grid and in writing offline event reconstruction software. The hadron collider physics is expected to reveal detailed properties of B hadrons (containing heavy b-quarks) including the mixing of neutral B mesons containing strange quarks, and CP violation which is related to the existence of the matter- antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. Searches for new physics at the LHC will focus on understanding role and nature of the Higgs boson, the existence of new symmetries of nature (e.g. supersymmetry) and extra spatial dimensions. The neutrino oscillations programme is expected to provide important information about the masses of and the amount of mixing amongst the three known species of neutrinos. If the appearance of electron neutrinos can be well measured in a muon neutrino beam then it may be possible, in a further phase of the research, to establish the existence of CP violation in the neutrino sector of the Standard Model. This could have wide reaching implications for the understanding of the matter- antimatter asymmetry of the Universe. The development of new particle accelerator technology for high energy particle physics and a broad range of alternaive applications is the mission of the Cockcroft Institute. The Lancaster group were co-founders of the Institute and remain commited to supporting its evolution. Equally, we work to develop particle detectors (silicon strip, pixel, LAr TPC) and technologies (CMOS) to benefit the field, but also with potential spin-out benefit to science and society.
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