Experimental Particle Physics at the University of Edinburgh

The aim of particle physics research is to explore, model and understand how the Universe works at the smallest accessible scales. The Particle Physics Experiment research group at the University of Edinburgh is engaged in a programme of collaborative research that will enhance our knowledge of the constituents of matter and the forces that govern their behaviour. There are many outstanding questions in particle physics that we hope to help answer, including: What is the nature of the quantum interactions that govern the behaviour of the known subatomic particles, the quarks and leptons? How does the Higgs boson behave? How do neutrinos behave and why are they so light? What is the origin of the cosmological observations of dark matter? Are there other subatomic particles that we are yet to discover? What are the differences between matter and anti-matter? To try to address these questions, our research programme includes research at the energy frontier, on flavour physics, on neutrinos and on the dark sector. We undertake this research along with our collaborators who are based at other universities and research institutes in the UK and worldwide. On energy frontier physics, we collaborate in the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN - the world's highest energy collider. We analyse the collisions to examine how the Higgs boson behaves and to look for evidence of new particle production. In flavour physics, we are members of the LHCb experiment collaboration, also at the LHC. We analyse data collected by the LHCb detector to characterise the small, but important, differences between bottom & charm quarks and bottom & charm anti-quarks that are produced copiously in LHC collisions. On neutrino physics, we participate in the SuperNEMO collaboration; SuperNEMO will make its first science run in 2024 and is optimised to search for evidence of neutrinoless double-beta decay which would indicate that neutrinos are their own anti-particles! We are also collaborators on the MicroBOONE and SBND neutrino experiments that observe accelerator neutrinos at Fermilab and we participate in the construction of the DUNE long-baseline neutrino experiment due to start at the end of this decade. In the Dark Sector, we are searching for direct evidence for particles that may explain dark matter. We are members of the LZ collaboration and also the DarkSide experiment currently under construction. Both these experiments have excellent potential to observe dark matter particles, depending on exactly what form this takes. In all our collaborations, we also contribute to the ongoing operation of the experiment and to the development, testing, and construction of new or upgraded detectors for the experiments. Our analysis techniques and the detector technology that we develop have applications outside of particle physics. As an example, our expertise in computer modelling of detectors and in detecting single photons, can be used for optimising medical imaging applications; we are establishing new work in PET detection as part of this research programme. The nature of our research into fundamental physics means we do not know what we will uncover! But with our group's expertise and innovative approaches we are well placed to interpret our experimental observations to understand more deeply the subatomic structure of our Universe.