LARGE HADRON COLLIDER at CERN RAS, Nov 2008 Alan Barr University of Oxford The

The building blocks of matter CELLS Twenty per mm DNA Five hundred thousand per mm Nucleus Five hundred billion per mm Quarks More than one million billion per mm Extra magnification? x 2 thousand x 25 thousand x 1 million Electron microscope Particle Accelerators 2 fm < 1 am 50 μm 2 nm Microscope

The new periodic table Electron, e d quark Photon, γ Gluon, g Not to scale! Commonplace particles u quark Matter Particles u Quarks d c s t b Leptons νeνe νμνμ ντντ e μ τ Force carriers WZ γ g  Components and theory largely understood  Underlie all of physics, astronomy, chemistry, life!  Almost all extremely well tested Not seen h G Several big unanswered questions at the scientific frontier…

Extraordinarily well tested

Where has all the anti-matter gone? Matter and antimatter should have been created in equal amounts Subtle differences between matter and anti-matter will be investigated at the LHC High energy collisions create both in approximately equal amounts Where are the anti-planets?

The dark side of the universe 96% of the universe is NOT made of atoms Invisible matter dominates Lots of circumstantial evidence

Invisible mass Visible mass Bullet

Mass and the Higgs Boson In this analogy the Higgs Boson is a treacle-ball – something which allows us to see the treacle itself Endows space with a kind of all-pervasive sticky-treacle Interactions with this treacle gives mass to particles They then travel slower than the speed of light The Higgs Field High energy collisions ought to make Higgs Bosons

Big questions Where do the particles get their mass from? Where has all the anti-matter gone? What is dark matter made of? What else is out there?

CERN European Laboratory for Particle Physics Map © Google World’s largest particle physics laboratory Joint venture started in 1954 Multi-national laboratory on Swiss-French border Collaborators include many UK universities

French Alps Lake Geneva Geneva French Jura Mts

Blue Peter guide  Take some protons Lots of these in nature!  Make them move (very fast)  Bang them together It’s good to stand back at this point  Photograph the debris Your camera-phone may not be fast enough!

Foot on the accelerator… Energy v / c Lorentz velocity factor Speed of light Mass Velocity factor

Note concerning “high energy” Spark could jump 5000 km in air (~radius of The Earth)

The detectors are like digital cameras Very large cathedral-sized Precise: better than hair-width accuracy Fast: 40 million snaps per second (Your camera-phone probably isn't up to this!) Built by Collaborations: constructed by hundreds of physicists, technicians, engineers

Simulation

Switch on… CMS LHCb ALICE

… the beginning … Physics output will take some time, but benefits seen already…