What is the origin of mass? Are there extra dimensions of space? Why is the universe composed of matter rather than antimatter? Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN are addressing some of the most fundamental questions about the origin, evolution and composition of our universe. The results have the potential to alter our perception of how Nature operates at a fundamental level.
This talk will use the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment as an example of LHC research to outline some of the challenges faced by the scientists in building and running experiments, such as operating in the harsh environment created by hundreds of millions of high energy proton-proton collisions every second and dealing with the massive amounts of data they generate.
With physicists recently announcing results that hint tantalizingly at the existence of the elusive Higgs boson, the current data and outlook as well as the importance of fundamental research will be discussed.
Biography
Tejinder Virdee is Professor of Physics at Imperial College London. He undertook his graduate studies at Imperial on anexperiment conducted at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre, USA, and then worked at CERN on various experiments including UA1 and the Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS).
As one of the founding members of the CMS experiment, Professor Virdee has played a major role in all the phases including its design, the R&D and detector prototyping (inventing some of the techniques used), its construction, installation, commissioning, and data analysis. He was also the CMS spokesperson for a number of years.
Professor Virdee’s current work involves analyzing CMS results to look for new physics including the Higgs boson. He was awarded the 2009 James Chadwick Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for his crucial role in the design and construction of the CMS experiment.
The Peter Lindsay Memorial Lecture
The lecture is presented by the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering in partnership with the City and Guilds College Association.
Professor Peter Lindsay was a renowned electrical engineer who escaped Poland when Hitler invaded in 1939, and came to London where he gained a BSc, MSc and PhD at Imperial in quick succession. He specialised in research on microwave electron tubes (valves) and produced seminal papers on electron velocity distributions and noise phenomena in magnetron devices.
He worked in industry and academia in the US before returning to England as a lecturer in electrical engineering at King’s College. He was promoted to reader in 1970 and to a personal chair in physical electronics in 1974. He also served as dean of engineering. He was a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, the Institute of Physics and the City and Guilds College.