Category: Newsletter
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Exploring the Higgs: A Personal Retrospective
Exploring the Higgs: A Personal Retrospective When I started my career as a theoretical physicist in the early 1980’s, the Higgs boson was not yet a topic of major theoretical interest. There was a long gap between the time when the Brout- Englert-Higgs mechanism was proposed and when people really started doing some hard calculations.
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The long hunt for the Higgs boson
The long hunt for the Higgs boson An essay about the Higgs boson ten years after its discovery? Already ten years? This unique adventure has left indelible memories to the thousands of people who have been instrumental in giving birth to this wonderful discovery. There have been also Higgs-boson adventures at LEP and at the
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From Despair to Discovery
From Despair to Discovery The Ultimate Higgs Discovery Machine: The excitement amongst particle physicists around the world was palpable when the LHC, a proton accelerator twenty years in the making, started its commissioning phase on 10th September 2008. With 7 TeV protons beams designed to collide with unprecedented intensity, the LHC could produce the long
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Solving New Puzzles with the Higgs Boson
Solving New Puzzles with the Higgs Boson … to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from. T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding You might think that particle physics has accomplished its goals with the discovery of the last piece of the Standard Model jigsaw puzzle, the Higgs boson, but
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Scrutinising cosmic antimatter production with an innovative use of LHCb
Scrutinising cosmic antimatter production with an innovative use of LHCb “The real prize is finding something new out there” is one of the most famous citations by Vera Rubin, the scientist who around 1975 firstly observed the anomalous rotation curves of spiral galaxies, providing evidence for the possible existence of dark matter (DM). Since then,
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ATLAS and CMS experiments looking forward to Run 3
ATLAS and CMS experiments looking forward to Run 3 On the 4th of July of 2022 we celebrated the 10th anniversary of the end of decades-long search for an experimental confirmation of the BEH mechanism, and the start of a new era. With the discovery of the Higgs boson, the last unknown fundamental parameter of
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In discussion with Rolf-Dieter Heuer
In discussion with Rolf-Dieter Heuer Rolf-Dieter Heuer is no stranger to CERN, serving as Director General of the organization from 2009 to 2015. Previous to that, from 1984 to 1998, he was a staff member at the Laboratory, working for the OPAL collaboration at the Large Electron Positron collider (LEP) while between 1994 and 1998,
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LHC experiments restart
LHC experiments restart The LHC restarted this summer, after a period of upgrades (LS2) and is gearing up to probe new realms of physics during a third run, which will be its most powerful yet. Run 3 of the LHC will feature higher-energy particle beams and higher collision rates, allowing physicists to collect more data
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DT group publishes 2021 annual report
DT group publishes 2021 annual report The mandate of the Detector Technologies (DT) group in the Experimental Physics department covers development, construction, operation and maintenance of particle detectors for CERN experiments. Last year showed great progress on several projects both for the LHC and non-LHC experiments, as detailed in the recent annual report. Moreover, DT
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Zooming in the EP R&D Days 2022
Zooming in the EP R&D Days 2022 The annual EP R&D Days meeting was held on the 20th and 21st of June 2022. The meeting reviewed progress and plans of the 11 work packages as the EP RnD programme reaches its midpoint. In addition, the meeting offered better understanding of the respective needs and potential