July 2013 Café Scientifique
New Zealand at the large Hadron Collider: What have we learned and where are we going
Dr David Krofcheck
Department of Physics
University of Auckland
New Zealand is an active participant in the research at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, on the world’s largest particle and nuclear physics experiments. In 2010 the Large Hadron Collider began its main physics programme of smashing together protons in search of new particles and forces in the universe.
What do we know now about our universe that we did not know in the pre-LHC era? What questions remain unanswered, and can we ever hope to answer them? We will discuss Hadrons-to-Higgs particles, and Z bosons-to-Zeptospace. The LHC is currently in Long Shutdown #1 until January 2015 for upgrades and maintenance of both the accelerator and the huge particle detectors.
Learn more about the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)