Sussex Experimental Particle Physics 2015 Consolidated Grant

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The Sussex Experimental Particle Physics group is involved in various strands of Particle Physics: the ATLAS experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider; the SNO+ neutrino experiment at SNOLAB in Canada; the nEDM experiment at PSI, Zurich, Switzerland; the NOvA experiment and other future long-baseline neutrino projects at FNAL, Chicago, USA. All of these experiments probe some of the most fundamental properties of Nature, seeking to find evidence for new physics phenomena. Sussex makes leading contributions to the analysis of ATLAS data, searching for evidence of supersymmetry (SUSY) in proton-proton interactions, focusing on the search for electroweak SUSY particles, known as charginos and neutralinos, and of the supersymmetric scalar partners of the top quark. The discovery of supersymmetry would not only provide evidence for the existence of new physics, but also potentially establish a link between particle physics and cosmology, by uncovering the nature of the elusive Dark Matter in our universe. Sussex also makes important contribution to the ATLAS trigger system (which acts like the experiment's "brain") -- through participation in trigger operations and in the development and maintenance of core software for the trigger system. The group is also involved in preparations for future upgrades of the ATLAS trigger system. Sussex provides substantial intellectual leadership in the ongoing search for an electric dipole moment (EDM) of the neutron. Finding an EDM would represent unambiguous evidence for physics beyond the SM; conversely, the absence of any EDM, at the sensitivity for which we are aiming, would provide severe constraints on models of new physics. This work also provides a link to cosmology, since the size of any neutron EDM is determined by the same CP-violating mechanism that underlies the dominance of matter over antimatter in the Universe. Sussex plays a crucial role in the field of neutrino physics, through participation in the SNO+ and NOvA experiments, and through involvement in the future programme of long-baseline neutrinos in the USA. On SNO+, Sussex leads calibration and the dataflow activities and is involved in preparations for physics analysis, with focus on the crucial neutrinoless double-beta decay analysis. This could both determine the mass of the neutrino and answer the long-standing question of whether the neutrino is its own antiparticle. The group has a major role in the analysis of NOvA data and is becoming involved in LBNE/LBNF via contributions to the data-acquisition software and liquid argon time-projection chamber prototypes.