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RWTH Aachen Particle Physics Theory

Kategorie: ‘life at the institute’

Anticipating Discoveries: LHC14 and Beyond

July 17th, 2015 | by

PhD students Leila Ali Cavasonza and Mathieu Pellen report from the workshop “Anticipating Discoveries: LHC14 and Beyond”

Few months ago, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Geneva woke up from a long shut-down phase. It is now operating at a centre of mass energy of 13 TeV (it might reach 14 TeV in the upcoming phases). This is the first time in the history of humanity that particles are collided at such high energy in a machine built by humans.
Thus the Run II of the LHC is just starting and is lifting once again the excitement in the particle physics community. It is thus the right time to discuss what particles or theories could be discovered by the ATLAS and CMS detectors. In this spirit, a topical workshop organised by the Munich Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics (MIAPP) has been held in Munich: “Anticipating Discoveries: LHC14 and Beyond” from the 13th to the 15th of July.

 

screen_shot_2015-07-14_at_08.13.25In the last few days, the so-called pentaquark has been claimed to be discovered by the LHCb collaboration. This is an extraordinary discovery but the particle physics theorists are after another kind of particles. Indeed this pentaquark (a composite object made of 5 quarks, see picture to the right) has been predicted many years ago by quantum-chromo dynamics (QCD) but has never been observed so far. What theorists are looking for are theories beyond the standard model. These are introduced to explain experimental and theoretical problems. In general, these predict new resonances or effects that can be traced by experimental collaborations.

 

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During this workshop many theories or extensions of previous ones have been proposed. In particular since the discovery of the Higgs boson, extensions of the Higgs sector are under high scrutiny. The beautiful theory of supersymmetry which predicts a special relation between bosons and fermions is still greatly discussed.
In particular extension of its minimal version have been proposed. Finally, as we know there is a huge amount of unexplained, invisible matter in our Universe, the so-called Dark Matter, it is justified to propose myriads of models that could explain various anomalies. In particular during these three days, several theories involving a non-abelian structure of the dark sector have been presented. These have a particular phenomenology at very different scales and are currently being tested against observations.
During this workshop many theories have been discussed and all theorists are craving to find signs of their favourite theory at the next LHC run. The kind of signs they are looking for is similar to the one reported by the ATLAS and CMS collaboration. The experimental collaborations have made public an excess in the Z/W channels (see picture on the left) and especially in the one where the gauge bosons are decaying into two jets. Future will tell us whether this is a sign of hope and the beginning of a new exciting hera.

 

Leila and Mathieu

Schüleruni Physik

July 21st, 2014 | by

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This week we have the “Schüleruni Physik “. 25 very motivated high school students aged 16-18 visit the institute to get an impression of life at the university and get some insight in whether they like to study physics at the RWTH. This year, we have planned great talks about particle physics at the collider and in space. In the afternoon, the students have the possibility to experiment and visit labs.

If you have missed to apply for this year, go here to find out about other RWTH events for high school students.