Physics

Dr. Peter Thomassen
Rutgers university

Experimental particle physics (also called high-energy physics, HEP), is an important research field that helps understand fundamental questions about the origin and the nature of the different types of matter in the universe and of the forces which cause the interactions between these matter particles. The seminar will start with a general introduction to the field,followed by a description of the LHC proton collider and the CMS detector system at the CERN laboratory. After that, I will describe the analysis of proton collision data that was my Ph.D. thesis project, and show how the analysis is used to exlude the existence of a certain type of hypothetical particles. The seminar is designed to be of interest for both HEP researchers as well as non-HEP experts.