2012 Consolidated Grant Supplement
Lead Research Organisation:
Lancaster University
Department Name: Physics
Abstract
This research is aimed at understanding the properties of the basic building blocks of the Universe (the elementary particles) and the nature of the fundamental forces which govern the interactions of these particles. In so doing, deep insights will be gained about the origin and evolution of the Universe, especially in the first moments after the Big Bang.
The Lancaster research programme covers all the main types of accelerator facilities and is based on hadron collider physics with the Tevatron (Fermilab) and LHC (CERN) machines, and the observation of long baseline neutrino oscillations in Japan. All of this work will be underpinned by Lancaster's expertise in characterising and understanding the properties of heavily irradiated silicon particle detectors, in operating high performance computing facilities on the Grid and in writing offline event reconstruction software.
The hadron collider physics is expected to reveal detailed properties of B hadrons (containing heavy b-quarks) including the mixing of neutral B mesons containing strange quarks, and CP violation which is related to the existence of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. Searches for new physics at the LHC will focus on understanding the origin of mass (and the role of the Higgs boson), the existence of new symmetries of nature (e.g. supersymmetry) and extra spatial dimensions.
The neutrino oscillations programme is expected to provide important information about the masses of and the amount of mixing amongst the three known species of neutrinos. If the appearance of electron neutrinos can be well measured in a muon neutrino beam then it may be possible, in a further phase of the research, to establish the existence of CP violation in the neutrino sector of the Standard Model. This could have wide reaching implications for the understanding of the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe.
The development of new particle accelerator technology for high energy particle physics and a broad range of alternaive applications is the mission of the Cockcroft Institute. The Lancaster group were co-founders of the Institute and remain commited to supporting its evolution.
The Lancaster research programme covers all the main types of accelerator facilities and is based on hadron collider physics with the Tevatron (Fermilab) and LHC (CERN) machines, and the observation of long baseline neutrino oscillations in Japan. All of this work will be underpinned by Lancaster's expertise in characterising and understanding the properties of heavily irradiated silicon particle detectors, in operating high performance computing facilities on the Grid and in writing offline event reconstruction software.
The hadron collider physics is expected to reveal detailed properties of B hadrons (containing heavy b-quarks) including the mixing of neutral B mesons containing strange quarks, and CP violation which is related to the existence of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. Searches for new physics at the LHC will focus on understanding the origin of mass (and the role of the Higgs boson), the existence of new symmetries of nature (e.g. supersymmetry) and extra spatial dimensions.
The neutrino oscillations programme is expected to provide important information about the masses of and the amount of mixing amongst the three known species of neutrinos. If the appearance of electron neutrinos can be well measured in a muon neutrino beam then it may be possible, in a further phase of the research, to establish the existence of CP violation in the neutrino sector of the Standard Model. This could have wide reaching implications for the understanding of the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe.
The development of new particle accelerator technology for high energy particle physics and a broad range of alternaive applications is the mission of the Cockcroft Institute. The Lancaster group were co-founders of the Institute and remain commited to supporting its evolution.
Planned Impact
projects. These projects have been stimulated by our current research at the LHC and with T2K in Japan.
2. UK and overseas industry from knowledge exchange resulting from our own basic research with heavily irradiated silicon particle detectors, for which we have a long and impressive track record. Manufacturers of solid state detectors designed to operate in high radiation environments will benefit from the knowledge and ideas that we are able to transmit, enabling them to optimise the design and performance of their own products.
We will ensure that industry is made aware of our research, and thereby benefit from it, through a broad programme of dissemination involving direct contacts with potential industrial partners and with indirect contacts, namely with refereed publications in high impact factor journals, conference & workshop talks and proceedings, university seminars, articles & interviews in the popular media (television, radio, newspapers & scientific magazines), web-casts and Twitter feeds. We believe that these standard forms of dissemination to the academic community also have the potential to reach industrial partners and are a significant supplement to direct contacts.
3. The UK general public, including schools, through outreach activities and the cultural impact of particle physics research.
We will ensure that these communities are made aware of our research, and thereby benefit from it, through a broad programme of dissemination involving articles & interviews in the popular media (television, radio, newspapers & scientific magazines), public lectures, web-casts and Twitter feeds. There is abundant evidence that a large fraction of the general public finds the conceptual ideas of particle physics and its associated technologies both fascinating and stimulating. The most obvious example of this is the extraordinary level of public interest in the LHC, resulting in the term 'Hadron Collider' becoming a phrase that the majority of the population recognize and know something about. Quite regular satirical reference to the machine is powerful evidence that this science has deeply penetrated into the popular culture. The profound questions about the origin of the Universe which particle physics addresses strike a very clear chord with the public, many of who want to understand more about the Universe's origins and hence their own origins. There is an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge about this subject in the general public. At Lancaster we have been involved with the LHC for twenty years and it always has been, and always will be, a great privilege and a pleasure to be able to share our progress and discoveries with members of the public.
In the case of schools, in addition to all of the above, we run a very successful and long established programme of outreach activities, involving particle physics masterclasses, A-level particle physics enrichment days, talks at schools, organised and hosted trips to CERN, and teacher training events. The students benefit from these activities by acquiring deeper understanding of physics, enabling them to perform better in examinations, and by becoming more enthused about the subject in general. The Department employs a part-time physics teacher, funded by the Ogden Trust, to organise most of our schools outreach activities and thanks to his efforts, our outreach programme has proven to be very popular and effective, with growing evidence that more students are being encouraged to apply to do a physics degree either at Lancaster or elsewhere. Many of them cite their interest in particle physics as being one of the key drivers behind their choice of degree. We expect this pattern to continue into the future.
2. UK and overseas industry from knowledge exchange resulting from our own basic research with heavily irradiated silicon particle detectors, for which we have a long and impressive track record. Manufacturers of solid state detectors designed to operate in high radiation environments will benefit from the knowledge and ideas that we are able to transmit, enabling them to optimise the design and performance of their own products.
We will ensure that industry is made aware of our research, and thereby benefit from it, through a broad programme of dissemination involving direct contacts with potential industrial partners and with indirect contacts, namely with refereed publications in high impact factor journals, conference & workshop talks and proceedings, university seminars, articles & interviews in the popular media (television, radio, newspapers & scientific magazines), web-casts and Twitter feeds. We believe that these standard forms of dissemination to the academic community also have the potential to reach industrial partners and are a significant supplement to direct contacts.
3. The UK general public, including schools, through outreach activities and the cultural impact of particle physics research.
We will ensure that these communities are made aware of our research, and thereby benefit from it, through a broad programme of dissemination involving articles & interviews in the popular media (television, radio, newspapers & scientific magazines), public lectures, web-casts and Twitter feeds. There is abundant evidence that a large fraction of the general public finds the conceptual ideas of particle physics and its associated technologies both fascinating and stimulating. The most obvious example of this is the extraordinary level of public interest in the LHC, resulting in the term 'Hadron Collider' becoming a phrase that the majority of the population recognize and know something about. Quite regular satirical reference to the machine is powerful evidence that this science has deeply penetrated into the popular culture. The profound questions about the origin of the Universe which particle physics addresses strike a very clear chord with the public, many of who want to understand more about the Universe's origins and hence their own origins. There is an almost insatiable thirst for knowledge about this subject in the general public. At Lancaster we have been involved with the LHC for twenty years and it always has been, and always will be, a great privilege and a pleasure to be able to share our progress and discoveries with members of the public.
In the case of schools, in addition to all of the above, we run a very successful and long established programme of outreach activities, involving particle physics masterclasses, A-level particle physics enrichment days, talks at schools, organised and hosted trips to CERN, and teacher training events. The students benefit from these activities by acquiring deeper understanding of physics, enabling them to perform better in examinations, and by becoming more enthused about the subject in general. The Department employs a part-time physics teacher, funded by the Ogden Trust, to organise most of our schools outreach activities and thanks to his efforts, our outreach programme has proven to be very popular and effective, with growing evidence that more students are being encouraged to apply to do a physics degree either at Lancaster or elsewhere. Many of them cite their interest in particle physics as being one of the key drivers behind their choice of degree. We expect this pattern to continue into the future.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Peter Ratoff (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Aad G
(2015)
Measurement of differential J / ? production cross sections and forward-backward ratios in p + Pb collisions with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review C
Aad G
(2015)
Measurement of the production of neighbouring jets in lead-lead collisions at s NN = 2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for microscopic black holes in a like-sign dimuon final state using large track multiplicity with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2014)
Study of heavy-flavor quarks produced in association with top-quark pairs at s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2013)
Searches for heavy long-lived sleptons and R-hadrons with the ATLAS detector in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2015)
Search for direct pair production of a chargino and a neutralino decaying to the 125 GeV Higgs boson in [Formula: see text] TeV [Formula: see text] collisions with the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2014)
Measurements of four-lepton production at the Z resonance in pp collisions at sqrt[s] = 7 and 8 TeV with ATLAS.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2015)
Search for charged Higgs bosons decaying via H ± ? t ± ? in fully hadronic final states using pp collision data at s $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of ? c1 and ? c2 production with s $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 7 TeV pp collisions at ATLAS
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of the mass difference between top and anti-top quarks in pp collisions at s = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of the top quark pair production charge asymmetry in proton-proton collisions at $ \sqrt{s} $ = 7 TeV using the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Search for a new resonance decaying to a W or Z boson and a Higgs boson in the [Formula: see text] final states with the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2015)
Search for Higgs boson pair production in the [Formula: see text] final state from pp collisions at [Formula: see text] TeVwith the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2014)
Search for a multi-Higgs-boson cascade in W + W - b b ¯ events with the ATLAS detector in p p collisions at s = 8 TeV
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of the [Formula: see text] production cross-section using [Formula: see text] events with [Formula: see text]-tagged jets in [Formula: see text] collisions at [Formula: see text] and 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2014)
Search for supersymmetry at $\sqrt{s}$ = 8 TeV in final states with jets and two same-sign leptons or three leptons with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2013)
Search for resonant diboson production in the W W / W Z ? l ? j j decay channels with the ATLAS detector at s = 7 TeV
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2015)
Search for heavy lepton resonances decaying to a Z boson and a lepton in pp collisions at s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Erratum to: Measurement of the inclusive jet cross-section in proton-proton collisions at s = 7 $$ \sqrt{s}=7 $$ TeV using 4.5 fb-1 of data with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Search for squarks and gluinos with the ATLAS detector in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV proton-proton collision data
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Measurement of charged-particle spectra in Pb+Pb collisions at s N N = 2.76 $$ \sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=2.76 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Search for charged Higgs bosons decaying via H ± ? t ± ? in fully hadronic final states using pp collision data at s $$ \sqrt{s} $$ = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2012)
Search for diphoton events with large missing transverse momentum in 7 TeV proton-proton collision data with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2015)
Summary of the searches for squarks and gluinos using s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Measurement of the t t ¯ W $$ t\overline{t}W $$ and t t ¯ Z $$ t\overline{t}Z $$ production cross sections in pp collisions at s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Search for supersymmetry in events containing a same-flavour opposite-sign dilepton pair, jets, and large missing transverse momentum in [Formula: see text] TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2015)
Measurements of the Nuclear Modification Factor for Jets in Pb+Pb Collisions at v(s)NN]=2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2015)
Search for heavy long-lived multi-charged particles in pp collisions at [Formula: see text] TeV using the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2015)
Measurement of exclusive ? ? ? l + l - production in proton-proton collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2015)
Study of the spin and parity of the Higgs boson in diboson decays with the ATLAS detector.
in The European physical journal. C, Particles and fields
Aad G
(2013)
Search for displaced muonic lepton jets from light Higgs boson decay in proton-proton collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2014)
Evidence for electroweak production of W±W±jj in pp collisions at sqrt[s] = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2015)
Search for low-scale gravity signatures in multi-jet final states with the ATLAS detector at s = 8 $$ \sqrt{s}=8 $$ TeV
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2013)
Search for t t ¯ resonances in the lepton plus jets final state with ATLAS using 4.7 fb - 1 of p p collisions at s = 7 TeV
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2013)
Single hadron response measurement and calorimeter jet energy scale uncertainty with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in The European Physical Journal C
Aad G
(2014)
Measurement of the Z/? * boson transverse momentum distribution in pp collisions at s = 7 $$ \sqrt{s}=7 $$ TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2015)
Summary of the ATLAS experiment's sensitivity to supersymmetry after LHC Run 1 - interpreted in the phenomenological MSSM
in Journal of High Energy Physics
Aad G
(2014)
Search for WZ resonances in the fully leptonic channel using pp collisions at s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physics Letters B
Aad G
(2013)
Search for new phenomena in events with three charged leptons at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2015)
Search for photonic signatures of gauge-mediated supersymmetry in 8 TeV p p collisions with the ATLAS detector
in Physical Review D
Aad G
(2015)
Determination of the Ratio of b-Quark Fragmentation Fractions f(s)/f(d) in pp Collisions at vs=7 TeV with the ATLAS Detector.
in Physical review letters
Aad G
(2013)
Measurements of W ? and Z ? production in p p collisions at s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector at the LHC
in Physical Review D
| Description | The discovery of the Higgs boson at the LHC and the first observation of neutrinos of one type (muon neutrinos) changing into neutrinos of another type (electron neutrinos). |
| Exploitation Route | The research is ongoing and will lead to deeper insights into nature and the properties of the fundamental particles and forces. |
| Sectors | Education |
| URL | http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/physics/research/experimental-particle-physics/ |
| Description | WOMAD 2016 Physics Pavilion |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Curated the first phsycis pavilion at the WOMAD festival 2016 in Wiltshire. Totoal attendence over 40,000, through the tent 4000 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |