High Energy Physics or Particle Physics has a long history which you can arguably trace back to the Greeks in 600 BC, where the idea of the atom (atomos – ‘uncuttable’) was first invented in thought experiments. Ever since, there has been a slew of experimental findings, theories, and many groundbreaking discoveries, all of which have revolutionized the way humanity understands the Universe, and our place within it. As the name indicates, the energies at which experiments are performed have been increasing steadily according to the available technologies. Ever more sophisticated experiments have been leading to ever clearer and completer pictures of the world we are living in, and the theories that can describe it. For now, the Standard Model of particle physics is the best model that we have, but we know that it cannot be the last word because there are so many things that it cannot explain or simply that it does not include (dark matter and gravity, for example!).
The largest man-made scientific experiment is in high energy physics and its planning started in the mid seventies. The project was coined as the Large Electron Positron (LEP) Collider and since its start in 1989 it has been providing a trove of findings which eventually led to the Nobel Prize in physics (1999). The 27 km circular tunnel in which electrons and positrons were brought to collision lasted for 12 years, until 2001, and got a new life as a proton-proton collider under a new name, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which was proposed in the mid eighties and started operation in 2009. Already in its first run the CMS and ATLAS experiments simultaneously and independently discovered the Higgs boson in 2012 which lead to another Nobel Prize in physics (2013)
In 2013 the study for a massive new accelerator – like LEP/LHC on steroids – was approved based on CERN’s council decision. The study is called the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study and proposes to build a collider with 100 km circumference, almost four times as long as the existing LEP/LHC complex with an unprecedented reach in terms of energy and precision. The sequence of colliders copies the LEP/LHC idea and is expected to serve the vibrant community that will grow out of the present LHC community to provide them for decades with exciting physics measurements and possibly ground breaking discoveries. Discoveries do not come easy or cheap and there are no guarantees, but what is guaranteed is that we will challenge our understanding of the world at a level never reached before and we will enter into territory never explored by humans before.
In preparation for such a project that could possibly start in 2040, it is paramount to get a young generation of students excited about the idea, involved, and trained so they eventually make their way and find out what really holds the world and universe together. In this context we have started to invite undergraduates, and in particular freshmen, to join the PPC in our planning of the Future… the Future Circular Collider feasibility study. This year during the independent activity period (IAP) in January at MIT, a group of about nine students of which seven were freshmen – and of those only one really bent on choosing physics as a major – went through an intense exercise to develop analyses that would be first performed at the beginning of the FCC ee phase of the collider when electrons and positrons are collided near the Z peak.
The project took off on January 9, and once we saw the ‘Physics Phamily’ on the black board we knew something was working. We had equipped several offices with a number of nice desks for everybody to sit in comfort, but students decide to huddle up and work ‘very’ closely together on their tutorials initially and then the chosen analyses. One of our postdocs, Jan Eysermans (behind the desk on the right), had come from CERN for the first weeks and prepared the analysis topics, produced the simulations to be analyzed, and written outlines of the analyses to be performed. One of our graduate students, Luca Lavezzo (behind the desk on the left), took over the group and led them through the many questions in physics and software.
Analyses like the hadronic total cross section, the muon forward backward asymmetry, and a detailed evaluation of the electroweak fits of those measurements were performed, all while learning the basic tools of particle physics and scientific computing. “I hope the students got a feel for what research in physics looks like, and how they can apply what they’ve learned in their coursework to tackle the big questions about the Universe”, explained Luca Lavezzo. The results were presented in a little conference at the end of IAP, which students took quite seriously, showing up well-dressed to present some wonderful slides that showed off their newly-gained knowledge in Python, statistics, histograms, and of course, particle physics. The project was a big success; as said by Jan: “I was deeply surprised by their enthusiasm and questioning attitude, both of which are essential in our field when unknown physics is being explored.” We concluded the January FCC ee project with a brisk walk – an arctic blast had just hit Boston that day, plunging temperatures to -25 degrees Celsius – to the Mad Monkfish restaurant were we enjoyed miso soup, a couple of party boats, and great conversations. We certainly hope to see those students again, because it was fun, but also because there is a lot more work to be done!
