The European Physical Society High Energy Physics meeting, held every two years, is one of the most important conferences in our field. The LHC experiments form a major component of the scientific program, but non-collider high-energy physics, such as dark matter direct searches, neutrino physics, and gravitational waves, is also well represented. This year, the conference took place in Marseille, just a four-hour train ride from Geneva. The historic Palais du Pharo served as the venue, offering a stunning seaside location and a beautiful view of Marseille’s old port.
The plenary talks reflected the breadth of present and future directions in particle physics, not only in Europe but worldwide. The CMS highlights included several projects to which the PPC team made major contributions. Outgoing CMS physics convener Roberto Salerno presented our recent precision Standard Model and Higgs boson measurements, as well as the technical advances that have enabled new directions in analysis, such as the outstanding performance of the data acquisition system and the new Level-1 scouting program. Former PPC member Josh Bendavid gave a plenary talk on Standard Model physics at the LHC, including our W boson mass measurement. Meanwhile, highlights from the ATLAS experiment included an observation of “toponium,” a bound state of top quarks. This result, following a similar study by CMS, sparked many lively discussions. My own presentation in a parallel session also focused on the W boson mass measurement, but highlighted the computing and software framework we developed. The talk was well attended and well received, and several speakers cited our work as a model for future analyses.
I especially enjoyed the chance to step outside my usual perspective and learn about non-collider physics. The extraordinary precision of the g-2 measurement stood out, as did the many neutrino projects soon coming online. For example, the Cubic Kilometre Neutrino Telescope will instrument a cubic kilometer of the Mediterranean Sea with optical modules. Seeing photos of the instrumentation and installation was fascinating. There were also rich discussions about the future of the field, particularly the next major project at CERN and the European strategy, which seems to be converging around the two-step FCC program. All of these diverse topics, both current and forward-looking, were distilled into a wonderful summary talk by Andreas Hoecker, whose clarity in presenting such a wide range of material was truly impressive and inspiring.
Beyond the talks, the conference was also an opportunity to reconnect with old colleagues and form new collaborations. Sharing meals at Marseille’s many excellent restaurants—especially for seafood—was a highlight. To end an excellent week, I enjoyed a traditional bouillabaisse, the city’s emblematic fish stew, at a stunning seaside location with colleagues from CMS, ATLAS, and theory. While I failed to take many group photos, I did at least capture a picture of the restaurant’s beautiful setting!
