Abstract
The Standard Model of fundamental particles and their interactions has been established and verified at a wide range of experiments around the world over the last four decades. However, the sector of this theory which gives masses to particles had not been established experimentally until last year. In the Standard Model, the Higgs mechanism requires a new "Higgs boson" which should be observable at the Large Hadron Collider, LHC, at CERN in Geneva. As widely reported over the summer, a new boson apparently fitting the description has been found by the two large LHC experiments, ATLAS and CMS, in meticulous analyses. The work leading to the discovery of this "Higgs-like" boson will be reviewed, with an emphasis on the ATLAS experiment, together with an overview of the observations made, and the next steps in the exploration of this new sector of physics. Some perspectives on the scale and worldwide scope of the experiments will be given.
The speaker is one of the ATLAS Deputy Spokespersons. Also present at the lecture will be the other ATLAS Deputy Spokesperson, Prof Andrew Lankford from the University of California, Irvine, and Dr Charlie Young from the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
About the speaker
Prof David Charlton has worked on a range of particle physics collider experiments at CERN, from his PhD work at the CERN proton-antiproton collider, via the LEP electron-positron collider in the 1990's, to the ATLAS Collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). At LEP, he worked on a range of precision electroweak physics measurements in the production and decays of Z and W bosons. He also worked on the construction of the silicon-strip tracking detectors for ATLAS, on the installation of its trigger system, and acted as Physics Coordinator of the experiment in the run-up to first LHC collisions. He is now one of the two Deputy Spokespersons of the ATLAS Collaboration, and will be its Spokesperson from March 2013. In addition to the work at CERN, Prof Charlton is also Professor of Particle Physics at the University of Birmingham.
Prof Charlton's research focus is on experimental tests of the mechanisms of electroweak symmetry breaking, hypothesised to be via the so-called Higgs mechanism. These studies should lead to the discovery of new physics – perhaps the much-anticipated Higgs boson – at the LHC during this decade. Prof Charlton is a Fellow of the Institute of Physics and has published around 500 publications in total with the ATLAS, OPAL and UA1 Collaborations.
About ATLAS Collaboration
The ATLAS Collaboration is a global collaboration formed in 1992, involving roughly 3,000 physicists from more than 174 institutions in 38 countries. ATLAS experiment is one of the largest collaborative efforts ever attempted in the physical sciences. It is a particle physics experiment at the advanced particle accelerator, Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). ATLAS will learn about the basic forces that have shaped our Universe since the beginning of time and that will determine its fate. Among the possible unknowns are the origin of mass, extra dimensions of space, microscopic black holes, and evidence for dark matter candidates in the Universe (http://atlas.ch).
CERN is an international laboratory for particle physicists, providing some of the most technologically advanced facilities for their research into the basic building blocks of the Universe (http://www.cern.ch).
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