A team of physicists at the University of Sussex is hunting for the missing pieces of the universe by smashing particles together, chasing neutrinos, and building underground detectors to catch dark matter. These experiments address the deepest gap in modern physics: the Standard Model explains only about 5% of the universe. The rest is dark matter and dark energy, neither of which the model accounts for. The group also aims to solve why the universe is made of matter and not antimatter—a question that underpins our very existence. This is fundamental science. Success would not produce a new smartphone or medical device next year. But past fundamental research into particle physics gave us the World Wide Web, medical imaging (PET scans), and the proton therapy used to treat cancer. A deeper understanding of neutrinos or dark matter could, in time, reshape how we generate energy, build sensors, or process information. The group’s work on artificial intelligence for data analysis also feeds directly into industrial applications, from autonomous systems to medical diagnostics.
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The Sussex Experimental Particle Physics (EPP) group counts eleven academic faculty members and focuses on the following main research areas: - the exploration of the Energy Frontier (using the ATLAS experiment, ATLAS Upgrades, future opportunities at colliders) - Neutrino Physics (using the SNO+, NOVA, DUNE, SBND, and JSNS2 experiments) - liquid argon-based direct matter searches (with the DEAP/DarkSide experiments) - precision measurements of the neutron electric dipole moment (the nEDM experiment). The group participates in GridPP and Sussex hosts a certified Grid Tier-2 computing cluster. At ATLAS, we search for physics beyond the current understanding of particle physics. We study in detail the particle interactions to verify our current understanding, but also look for evidence of new processes. This includes the search for Dark Matter - the matter that seems to exist in the Universe but has not been observed or is accounted for in our current models describing our understanding of matter. We will continue to lead on analysis and the trigger (which makes fast real-time decisions about what data is important and should be kept) at the upcoming LHC luminosity upgrades. In parallel with the exploitation of ATLAS and the ATLAS upgrade work, we will maintain a low-level involvement in R&D and physics studies for possible future colliders, aiming to further deepen our understanding of matter and the Universe. We also search directly for Dark Matter by building and operating experiments to try and observe Dark Matter interacting directly inside these experiments. We are involved in the DEAP-3600 experiment in Canada. The international community in direct detection searches using liquid argon has come together to put its weight behind the DarkSide-20k experiment, which will provide the best sensitivity that is currently technically possible. The neutrino has already provided some unexpected surprises and its study promises to answer fundamental questions about the nature of matter. At SNO+, we search for rare decays that could reveal the fundamental nature of neutrinos. At NOvA, we hope to better understand the extremely small masses of neutrinos and test whether matter and anti-matter perhaps behave in different ways. This study will be continued at the DUNE (a future, large-scale liquid-argon experiment). The combination of the studies at the SNO+ and DUNE/NOvA experiments has the potential to explain one of science's biggest questions to date: why is the Universe currently made out of matter and why is there no anti-matter any more? There have been some hints that there are more than the three neutrinos that we so far know about. The SBND experiment will look for evidence for new neutrinos and allow us to build up direct experience with the technology for the future DUNE experiment. The JSNS2 experiment will provide a direct test of previous (but disputed) observations of extra neutrinos, but with significantly fewer backgrounds and better detector technology. It also provides a good test-bed for liquid scintillator detector technology and optical calibration developments. The nEDM experiment studies the properties of neutrons with exquisite precision, complementing the ATLAS, neutrino and dark matter programmes by looking in a completely different way for evidence of a difference in behaviour between matter and antimatter. We participate in experiments through the analysis of data and contributions to technical deliverables. This builds skills among our PhD students and our researches and these developments have led to strong impact. We will continue to do this, in particular in the area of Artificial Intelligence, exploiting techniques that we use in our research. We will continue to actively interact with local industry and forge stronger links. Furthermore, we will bring our research to schools, teachers and the general public in innovative ways on a local, national and international level.
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