Experimental High-Energy Subatomic Particle Physicsawarburt/outreach/20080714_McGill... · 2008-07-14 · Montréal, 2008.07.14 Andreas Warburton (McGill) 1 Andreas Warburton. Department

Montréal, 2008.07.14 Andreas Warburton (McGill) 1

Andreas Warburton

Department of PhysicsMcGill University

McGill Explorations 2008

Experimental High-Energy Subatomic Particle Physics


Outline• Why did I become a Physicist? (A personal story)

• What is Particle Physics? (The Particle Adventure!)

• Why is Particle Physics so important?• Smallest Particles in the Universe!• Humankind’s Biggest Scientific Questions!

• The Wild Side of Physics: Smashing the High-Energy Frontier• Fermilab: Today’s highest-energy collisions• CERN: Soon to shatter all records

– Highest Energies!– Biggest Scientific Experiment of all time!– Earth’s Biggest Machine!

• Posters and Pamphlets for you and/or your high school / CEGEP


Why did I become a Physicist?

• Questions: Childhood →

Adolescence →

Adulthood• How did our physical world come about?• What is the Universe made of?• How do things work? All things.

• “Answers”:• Parents: radically different approaches – religion, atheism, but no

physical science!• Teachers, High School: many answers, but many more questions!• Reductionism: if you understand the pieces, then maybe you can

understand the whole!?• The Scientific Method

• The Ultimate Challenge:• Physics was my most challenging high-school subject…• An opportunity to advance the knowledge of Humankind• For me, there is nothing cooler.


Career Path: A Personal Overview• Kindergarten

• Switzerland• Public Elementary and High Schools

• Victoria, British Columbia• Bachelor of Science degree

• University of Victoria• Honours Physics• Co-op program

• Masters, Doctoral graduate degrees• University of Toronto• Experimental high-energy subatomic particle physics

• Postdoctoral Researcher• Cornell University, New York, USA• Lab of Nuclear Studies / Lab of Elementary Particle Physics

• University Professor• McGill University, Department of Physics• Researcher and Teacher• Experimental high-energy subatomic particle physics• “Always a Student!”• Chicago, USA; Geneva, Switzerland…


What is Particle Physics?

• Seeks answers to many questions, including• What is the world made of? FUNDAMENTAL PARTICLES• What keeps it all together? FUNDAMENTAL FORCES

• The Particle Adventure: http://particleadventure.org

• History of the Universe! (see chart)

• A Blueprint for “Everything”! The Standard Model (see chart)• Like the Periodic Table of Elements, but at a length scale 1 Billion

times smaller!!• Particles are fundamental (indivisible); are we there yet???• Basic fundamental forces; are they really just the same force???

http://particleadventure.org/




10 Big Unanswered Questions in Science1. What is Dark Matter?2. What is Dark Energy?3. Why is there so little Antimatter?4. How do all Particles, including Neutrinos, get their Masses?5. Where do Ultrahigh-Energy Particles come from?6. Are there new states of Matter at Ultrahigh Temperatures

and Densities?7. Are Protons unstable? 8. What is Gravity? (or, “making peace with Einstein’s soul”)9. Are there additional Dimensions beyond Space and Time?10.How did the Universe begin and How did we end up here?

ALL of these questions can be explored by studying fundamental particles!


The Tevatron Accelerator: Fermilab Tevatron Matter-Antimatter Collider

World’s highest-energy operating particle collider

Circumference ~6.28 km

1.96 TeV collision energy


The Experiment: Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF)

Live Collision Events! http://www.fnal.gov/pub/now/live_events/cdf_live.html

http://www.fnal.gov/pub/now/live_events/cdf_live.html


The Next Frontier: ATLAS at the LHC27 km Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

CERN Laboratory, Geneva, Switzerland

14 TeV proton-proton collision energies!

ATLAS Experiment

First collisions this year!


Some Interesting Facts about CERN!• World’s Largest Particle Physics Laboratory!

• Home of Earth’s largest machine, the LHC!

• Where the World Wide Web (www) was born!• Tim Berners-Lee, 1989• See this

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/AboutCERN/Achievem ents/WorldWideWeb/WWW-en.html

• “Angels and Demons”• Novel by Dan Brown, author of “The Da Vinci Code”• See this

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/Spotlight/SpotlightAand D-en.html for the truth…

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/AboutCERN/Achievements/WorldWideWeb/WWW-en.html

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/AboutCERN/Achievements/WorldWideWeb/WWW-en.html

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html

http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapters/Spotlight/SpotlightAandD-en.html


The ATLAS Experiment

Main Public Web Page: http://atlas.ch

http://atlas.ch/


The ATLAS Detector in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC)


ATLAS: How it really looks today!

ATLAS Live Webcams: http://atlas.ch/webcams.html

At McGill University, we are part of a Canadian team of scientists that is making significant contributions to the ATLAS project.

http://atlas.ch/webcams.html


Final Remarks: Particle Physics

• … is a personal adventure!

• … can answer some of Humanity’s deepest questions!

• … involves many people, big machines, big projects:• Collider Detector at Fermilab (CDF)• ATLAS Detector at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC)

Feel free to take posters and pamphlets for yourself and/or your high school.

Call/e-mail me with questions at any time!

Experimental High-Energy Subatomic Particle Physicsawarburt/outreach/20080714_McGill... · 2008-07-14 · Montréal, 2008.07.14 Andreas Warburton (McGill) 1 Andreas Warburton. Department

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