Current experiments

The bulk of our current activities are focused on experiments at the CERN laboratory, where the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and its experiments are currently being prepared for a third scientific run.

We are heavily involved in the ATLAS experiment, which studies proton-proton collisions at the energy frontier at the LHC. With its sister experiment CMS, ATLAS discovered the Higgs boson in 2012. Among other things, we are now studying the properties of the Higgs to search for deviations from the predictions of the Standard Model of particle physics.

Our LHCb and NA62 groups are making detailed investigations of flavour physics, working with beauty and strange quarks, respectively. They are studying ultra-rare processes in which new particles might show up as additional contributions to quantum loops.

Our non-accelerator activities include a leading role in the NEWS-G experiment, where we are developing spherical proportional counters to search for low mass dark matter candidates. We are also preparing for WIMP searches at Darkside-20k and for long baseline neutrino oscillation studies at DUNE.

We have strong capabilities in instrumentation, particularly the design and build of state-of-the-art trigger systems and semiconductor detectors. Our new `BILPA' laboratory is a 200m² set of clean rooms where we are building silicon detectors for the ATLAS upgrade and doing basic R&D into new types of radiation-hard sensors. We also run a substantial Tier 2 'GridPP' site as part of the Worldwide LHC Distributed Computing network.

We are also making the case for future energy frontier colliders including electron-positron collisions at a possible Linear Collider (ILC, CLIC ...), electron-proton and electron-ion collisions at LHeC or EIC and proton-proton collisions at FCC.

Use the navigation bar on the left to find out more about our roles in all of these experiments.