Particle Physics

Welcome to the Exciting World of Particle Physics!

What is our Universe made of? Help scientists at CERN to discover a new particle and reveal the structure of matter!

Through this project you will work with real data from the ATLAS experiment, that takes place to the largest and most powerful particle accelerator of the world, LHC! Identify particles and search for the famous Higgs boson!

If you want to join the research right away, please go directly to our

Participate

About

What is our Universe made of? CERN is trying to answer this fundamental question through the world’s most powerful accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The LHC has four experiments installed around him, one of which is called ATLAS. Researchers working at ATLAS are looking for undiscovered particles and they need your help!

Become a New Particle Hunter!

REINFORCE team developed a Zooniverse project called New Particle Search at CERN to give citizens the opportunity to contribute to the research for undiscovered particles at ATLAS experiment at CERN. Within this project you will work with real data from the LHC! You will identify displaced Vertices and known particles, search for Higgs bosons and discover long lived particles, helping to the optimization of the detectors and the development of new knowledge about the structure of matter.

What’s the smallest thing in the Universe? (TED-Ed)

The Standard Model-with Harry Cliff

CERN and science for peace (CERN)

The LHC Experiments (Fermilab)

Particle Detectors Subatomic Bomb Squad (Fermilab)

You don’t know what to do? Don’t worry! There is a detailed step-by-step tutorial for every stage of New Particle Search at CERN Zooniverse project which pops up after you click on the stage you want. The tutorial remains available on the right side of your screen at all times.

The project consists of three stages. We strongly recommend you take part in them in order. In Stage 1, you will identify Displaced Vertices, which are the signatures of long-lived particles. In Stage 2, you will identify the signatures of known particles (electrons, muons, photons) in the ATLAS detector. In Stage 3 you will: a) search for Higgs boson decays to a pair of photons and b) look for long-lived particles decaying far from the beam collision point.

Here you can watch again the dedicated webinar produced by REINFORCE team regarding the New Particle Search at CERN.

Identifying undiscovered particles at the Large Hadron Collider

Summary:

The webinar aims to give an overview of the Search For New Particles At The LHC Large Scale Citizen Science demonstrator and how it will be implemented in order to engage citizens in the scientific research, showcasing the tasks that citizens will be asked to perform and how their input will be fundamental to select traces of particles in the LHC detectors and calculate kinematic quantities.

You will learn:

  • How citizens can play an active role in the advance of ground-breaking research
  • How the images of LHC collisions recorded by the ATLAS experiment look like
  • How REINFORCE demonstrator about Search For New Particles At The LHC will be developed
  • How the project will work to include diverse and underrepresented groups in science

Speakers:

  • Stelios Vourakis (IASA)
  • Christine Kourkoumelis (NKUA/IASA, WP5 leader)
  • Dimitris Fassouliotis (NKUA/IASA)
  • Stylianos Angelidakis (NKUA/IASA)

Presentations of the webinar can be found here

Are you ready? Join the rest of the New Particle Hunters on Zooniverse here.

Would you like to ask something? The REINFORCE team is at your disposal.

There is also a discussion platform on New Particle Search at CERN Zooniverse project here where you can discuss with other citizen scientists.