Support for experimental particle physics

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Experimental particle physics addresses some of the fundamental questions about the structure and behaviour of the Universe at the level of the smallest particles of matter, the quarks and the leptons, and the forces acting between them. In this project we are contributing to the preparation of the ATLAS project at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN that will begin taking data in 2007. We are constructing and commissioning electronic systems and the software that drives them. From late 2007 we will be analysing the data as it becomes available. In particular we will be searhing the data for evidence of the existance of the Higgs boson, one of the key missing elements of the Standard Model of particle physics at present, and for supersymmetric particles, that are expected to exist. We are also planning to understand better the structure of the proton. In parallel we are are continuing our studies of data taken at the Stanford Linear Accelerator in California to measure the subtle difference in behaviour between particles and antiparticles that may be responsible for the existence of matter but no antimatter in the Universe. We are contributing to a major research and development programme for the construction of a linear collider - an accelerator that will collide electrons and positrons at very high energy. This machine, proposed by a worldwide collaboration, will be the highest energy electron-positron collider ever built. We are also carrying out a research and development programme on a detector to be used at this accelerator.